Explanations for a Decision Support System based on MCDA

In a military context, the process of planning operations involves the assessment of the situation, the generation of Courses of Action (COAs), and their evaluation according to significant points of view, in order to select the COA that represents the best possible compromise. To support this process, an advisor tool has been developed to assist a military Operation Centre staff in managing events and their related COAs, as well as prioritizing these COAs according to different evaluation criteria by means of a Multicriterion Decision Aid procedure. This paper describes an automated approach for explaining the ranking proposed by this decision support system

Supporting strategy : a survey of UK OR/MS practitioners

This paper reports the results of an on-line survey conducted with practitioner members of the UK Operational Research (OR) Society. The purpose of the survey was to explore the current practice of supporting strategy in terms of activities supported and tools used. The results of the survey are compared to those of previous surveys to explore developments in, inter-alia, the use of management/strategy tools and „soft‟ Operational Research / Management Science (OR/MS) tools. The survey results demonstrate that OR practitioners actively support strategy within their organisations. Whilst a wide variety of tools, drawn from the OR/MS and management / strategy fields are used to support strategy within organisations, the findings suggest that soft OR/MS tools are not regularly used. The findings also demonstrate that tools are combined to support strategy from both within and across the OR/MS and management / strategy fields. The paper ends by identifying a number of areas for further research

Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation

Municipalities increasingly have less financial resources to spend on implementation of transport strategies and plans. This situation is putting pressure on transport professionals to minimize wasteful expenditure on projects that do not deliver high transport service improvements. As such, the need for efficient, pragmatic decision making on policy direction, infrastructure expenditure, or any transport interventions is becoming very critical. Thus, transport professionals are increasingly in need of tools to help them predict with increased accuracy the outcomes of their intended transport interventions. The City of Cape Town has a Bus Rapid Transport system called MyCiTi. Current MyCiTi operations are incurring losses. The service is kept running on the back of subsidies from the federal government. There is a need for rationalization of the system. However, with strained resources, the interventions on the system have to guarantee improvements. Overemphasis on the ability of MyCiTi BRT service to support transportation during the 2010 soccer world cup event heavily influenced the design of the network. As a result, network appraisal is one area that can be done on the system to identify areas of improvement. In this thesis, decision making support will be demonstrated using a network design appraisal process for the MyCiTi BRT system in Cape Town. The existing MyCiTi network will undergo network improvement using heuristic node insertion technique leading to multiple network scenarios in a modeling environment. Agent-Based demand mobility behavior simulation will be used on each of the network scenarios to come up with network performance indicators. These network performance indicators will be used in the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model to come up with a ranking of the network scenarios and help in deciding on the optimum network improvement intervention. Overall, findings of this research show the importance of weighting of the performance indicators. Where networks that score well in the performance indicator with the high weights also rank high. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the importance of decision making support in interventions on complex systems like bus systems. Recommendations on the possible avenues of research stemming from this thesis have also been outlined

Decision Maps for Distributed Scenario-Based Multi-Criteria Decision Support

This thesis presents the Decision Map approach to support decision-makers facing complex uncertain problems that defy standardised solutions. First, scenarios are generated in a distributed manner: the reasoning processes can be adapted to the problem at hand whilst respecting constraints in time and availability of experts. Second, by integrating scenarios and MCDA, this approach facilitates robust decision-making respecting multiple criteria in a transparent well-structured manner

A multicriteria decision model for the selection of information system for a logistics company using MMASSI/TI

The aim of this work is to apply a methodology of decision support based on a multi-criteria decision analyses (MCDA), model that allows the evaluation and selection of an information system in a Logistics context. We carried out a literature review on supply chain management, logistics and decision theory to support all the practical work. A multi-criteria methodology for decision making support – Multi-criteria Methodology for the Assessment and Selection of Information Systems / Information Technologies (MMASSI / IT) based on logistics processes was applied during the MCDA, supported by a computer application. The ranking of the information systems best suited the decisional context was obtained and its sensitivity and robustness analyses performed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A linguistic multi-criteria decision-aiding system to support university career services

In this paper we introduce a linguistic multi-criteria decision-aiding model to support college students with the internship job market application. It considers a fuzzy ordered weighted averaging (FOWA) operator in the matching to capture the inherent uncertainty and vague nature of personnel selection processes. The decision model is integrated in a software tool able to capture data from university student resume and internship databases. The application assesses position characteristics implicitly by means of linguistic descriptions according to each student's preferences. The software tool is enabled with the ability to propose positions according to student preferences. The system selects a reduced list of alternatives from the set of job offers, helping students to decide on which positions to focus their applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Managing Vulnerabilities of Tactical Wireless RF Network Systems: A Case Study

Organisations and individuals benefit when wireless networks are protected. After assessing the risks associated with wireless technologies, organisations can reduce the risks by applying countermeasures to address specific threats and vulnerabilities. These countermeasures include management, operational and technical controls. While these countermeasures will not prevent all penetrations and adverse events, they can be effective in reducing many of the common risks associated with wireless RF networks. Among engineers dealing with different scaled and interconnected engineering systems, such as tactical wireless RF communication systems, there is a growing need for a means of analysing complex adaptive systems. We propose a methodology based on the systematic resolution of complex issues to manage the vulnerabilities of tactical wireless RF systems. There are is a need to assemble and balance the results of any successful measure, showing how well each solution meets the system’s objectives. The uncertain arguments used and other test results are combined using a form of mathematical theory for their analysis. Systems engineering thinking supports design decisions and enables decision‐makers to manage and assess the support for each solution. In these circumstances, complexity management arises from the many interacting and conflicting requirements of an increasing range of possible parameters. There may not be a single ‘right’ solution, only a satisfactory set of resolutions which this system helps to facilitate. Smart and innovative performance matrixes are introduced using a mathematical Bayesian network to manage, model, calculate and analyse all the potential vulnerability paths in wireless RF networks

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio