Literature Review on Vague Set Theory in Different Domains

Problem of decision making is a crucial task in every business. This decision making job is found very difficult when it is depends on the imprecise and vague environment, which is frequent in recent years. Vague sets are an extension of Fuzzy sets. In the fuzzy sets, each object is assigned a single value in the interval [0,1] reflecting its grade of membership. This single value does not allow a separation of evidence for membership and evidence against membership. Gau et al. proposed the notion of vague sets, where each object is characterized by two different membership functions: a true membership function and a false membership function. This kind of reasoning is also called interval membership, as opposed to point membership in the context of fuzzy sets. In this paper, reviews the related works on the decision making by using vague sets in different fields

Eco-innovation practices’ adoption in the automotive industry

Eco-innovation is a construct that is gaining increasing interest from academics and researchers since it is commonly considered in the literature as one of the strategies that allow manufacturing companies not only to significantly reduce the negative impacts on the environment but also the generation of pollutants. However, little is known about the adoption of eco-innovation practices in manufacturing companies, particularly in the automotive industry. Therefore, this research has as main objective to fill this gap in the literature and explore the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management. The study is conducted through a research framework consisting of 3 measurement scales, 14 items and 3 hypotheses and an extensive review of the literature. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 460 companies in the automotive and auto parts industry in Mexico. Data were analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Descriptive Statistics and Structural Equation Modelling. The results obtained show that product eco-innovation, process eco-innovation and management eco-innovation are good indicators for the adoption of eco-innovation practices for companies in the automotive and auto parts industry. The paper addresses a research gap in the academic literature in the eco-innovation field by providing evidence on the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management and the implementation of their practices in the automotive industry.N/

Reviewing energy system modelling of decentralized energy autonomy

Research attention on decentralized autonomous energy systems has increased exponentially in the past three decades, as demonstrated by the absolute number of publications and the share of these studies in the corpus of energy system modelling literature. This paper shows the status quo and future modelling needs for research on local autonomous energy systems. A total of 359 studies are roughly investigated, of which a subset of 123 in detail. The studies are assessed with respect to the characteristics of their methodology and applications, in order to derive common trends and insights. Most case studies apply to middle-income countries and only focus on the supply of electricity in the residential sector. Furthermore, many of the studies are comparable regarding objectives and applied methods. Local energy autonomy is associated with high costs, leading to levelized costs of electricity of 0.41 $/kWh on average. By analysing the studies, many improvements for future studies could be identified: the studies lack an analysis of the impact of autonomous energy systems on surrounding energy systems. In addition, the robust design of autonomous energy systems requires higher time resolutions and extreme conditions. Future research should also develop methodologies to consider local stakeholders and their preferences for energy systems

A System Dynamics Based Integrated Assessment Modelling of Global-Regional Climate Change: A Model for Analyzing the Behaviour of the Social-Energy-Economy-Climate System

The feedback based integrated assessment model ANEMI (version 2) represents the society-biosphere-climate-economy-energy system of the earth and biosphere. The development of the ANEMI model version 2 is based on the system dynamics simulation approach that (a) allows for the understanding and modelling of complex global change and (b) assists in the investigation of possible policy options for mitigating, and/or adopting to changing global conditions within an integrated assessment modelling framework. This thesis presents the ANEMI model version 2 and its nine individual sectors: climate, carbon cycle, land-use, population, food production, hydrologic cycle, water demand, water quality, and energy-economy. Two levels of the model are developed and presented here. The first one represents the society-biosphere-climate-economy-energy system on a global scale (ANEMI version 2). The second one is developed for a regional presentation of Canada (ANEMI_CDN). The development of the Canada model is based on the top-down approach and various disaggregation techniques. The disaggregation technique also extends the capability of the ANEMI model version 2 in generating monthly data, while the model runs with yearly time step. To evaluate market and nonmarket costs and benefits of climate change, the ANEMI model integrates an economic approach, with a focus on the international energy stock and fuel price, with climate interrelations and temperature change. The model takes into account all major greenhouse gases (GHG) influencing global temperature and sea-level variation. Several of the model sectors are built from the basic structure of the previous version of the ANEMI model (version 1.2) developed by Davies (2009) and reported by Davies and Simonovic (2010; 2011). However, they are integrated in a novel way, particularly the water sectors. The integration of optimization within the simulation framework of the ANEMI model version 2 is timely, as recognition grows of the importance of energy-based economic activities in determining long-term Earth-system behaviour. Experimentation with different policy scenarios demonstrates the consequences of these activities on future behaviour of the society-biosphere-climate-economy-energy system through feedback based interactions. The use of the model ANEMI version 2 and ANEMI_CDN improves both scientific understanding and socio-economic policy development strategy. This thesis describes the model structure in detail and illustrates its use through the analysis of three policy scenarios in both global and Canadian perspectives

An Open Source Based Data Warehouse Architecture to Support Decision Making in the Tourism Sector

In this paper an alternative Tourism oriented Data Warehousing architecture is proposed which makes use of the most recent free and open source technologies like Java, Postgresql and XML. Such architecture's aim will be to support the decision making process and giving an integrated view of the whole Tourism reality in an established context (local, regional, national, etc.) without requesting big investments for getting the necessary software.Tourism, Data warehousing architecture

A spatial decision support system for the analysis of environmental impacts of integrated crop-livestock production system

Recent shifts toward intensive and large confined livestock production units to enhance economic growth coupled with increased concerns for air, soil, and water quality have necessitated the development of computer-based management decision support systems for selecting environmentally sound production sites and for planning sustainable production systems. This dissertation describes the development and application of an interactive spatial decision support system that integrates a geographic information system, spatial and biophysical modeling, and a knowledge-based system into an interactive tool to facilitate planning and management of environmentally-sound livestock production. The spatial decision support can be used to select suitable watershed land areas for siting livestock production, to select fields for manure application, and to determine the potential impacts of livestock production practices on ground and surface water quality. The site selection component of the spatial decision support system is based on the ARC/INFO geographic information system and incorporates the effects of land use, soil type, topography, proximity to roads and surface water bodies, and other aesthetic and political considerations as well as multicriteria analysis techniques. The groundwater quality modeling component of the decision support system integrates a geographic information system and water quality modeling, using training sets from NLEAP water quality modeling, to estimate nitrate leaching. In order to evaluate nutrient loading on surface water from integrated crop-livestock production a surface water quality model capable of incorporating the spatial dynamics of watershed was needed. The AGNPS distributed-parameter model was used for this purpose. The AGNPS model integrated with ARC/INFO GIS forms a user-friendly modeling interface for surface water quality analysis. The interface automates extraction of the input parameters from GIS data layers and allows the user to interactively generate scenarios of nutrient management practices in crop-livestock production. In order to demonstrate utility of the integrated system, example applications were performed on 7075-ha Lake Icaria watershed in southern Iowa

Case-Based Decision Support for Disaster Management

Disasters are characterized by severe disruptions of the society’s functionality and adverse impacts on humans, the environment, and economy that cannot be coped with by society using its own resources. This work presents a decision support method that identifies appropriate measures for protecting the public in the course of a nuclear accident. The method particularly considers the issue of uncertainty in decision-making as well as the structured integration of experience and expert knowledge