Enhancing geographical information systems capabilities with multi-criteria evaluation functions

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Structuring the decision process : an evaluation of methods in the structuring the decision process

This chapter examines the effectiveness of methods that are designed to provide structure and support to decision making. Those that are primarily aimed at individual decision makers are examined first and then attention is turned to groups. In each case weaknesses of unaided decision making are identified and how successful the application of formal methods is likely to be in mitigating these weaknesses is assessed

Trends of Palestinian Higher Educational Institutions in Gaza Strip as Learning Organizations

The research aims to identify the trends of Palestinian higher educational institutions in Gaza Strip as learning organizations from the perspective of senior management in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip. The researchers used descriptive analytical approach and used the questionnaire as a tool for information gathering. The questionnaires were distributed to senior management in the Palestinian universities. The study population reached (344) employees in senior management is dispersed over (3) Palestinian universities. A stratified random sample of (182) employees from the Palestinian universities was selected and the recovery rate was (69.2%). Statistical analysis (SPSS) program was used for analysis and processing the data. The study found the following results: There is an agreement about: the importance of the focus of "organizational structure" with an average approval, the importance of "technological infrastructure" axis with high approval, and the importance of "strategic" with an average approval. The results concluded that the study sample agree on the importance of "organizational dimension" highly. The results showed that the sample believe that the "strategic leadership" level in the universities got medium-approval. There is a fair level agreement about the axis of interest "teams / committees". There is an agreement about the importance of the "human dimension" moderately. The results showed that the sample is highly agreed about the importance of focus of the "knowledge management", and the focus of the "continuing education". They agreed weakly to somewhat about the importance of the focus of "scientific research", moderately agree about the importance of the center of "institutional culture", agree moderately on the importance of "cognitive dimension". The results showed that the sample largely agree on the importance of the focus of "strategic partnerships and alliances". They agree highly on the axis "keep up with the labor market" and on the focus of the importance of "technology incubators". The results showed that the sample moderately agree about the importance of the theme on "consulting and training", the importance of the focus of "social responsibility", and the focus of the "Community dimension". The study found a group of recommendations including: there is a need to provide suitable environment that achieve learning organizations. There is a need to develop the technological infrastructure (hardware, software, networks, databases, and human skills) because of the great advantages that they offer. The universities need to adopt knowledge management in the academic and administrative departments because knowledge is the core of the work of these departments. The establishment of technology incubators in universities to adopt outstanding university research projects, to protect, to supports, and to market them; furthermore, to develop the capabilities and skills of employees in the field of information technology

Employing dynamic fuzzy membership functions to assess environmental performance in the supplier selection process

The proposed system illustrates that logic fuzzy can be used to aid management in assessing a supplier's environmental performance in the supplier selection process. A user-centred hierarchical system employing scalable fuzzy membership functions implement human priorities in the supplier selection process, with particular focus on a supplier's environmental performance. Traditionally, when evaluating supplier performance, companies have considered criteria such as price, quality, flexibility, etc. These criteria are of varying importance to individual companies pertaining to their own specific objectives. However, with environmental pressures increasing, many companies have begun to give more attention to environmental issues and, in particular, to their suppliers’ environmental performance. The framework presented here was developed to introduce efficiently environmental criteria into the existing supplier selection process and to reflect on its relevant importance to individual companies. The system presented attempts to simulate the human preference given to particular supplier selection criteria with particular focus on environmental issues when considering supplier selection. The system considers environmental data from multiple aspects of a suppliers business, and based on the relevant impact this will have on a Buying Organization, a decision is reached on the suitability of the supplier. This enables a particular supplier's strengths and weaknesses to be considered as well as considering their significance and relevance to the Buying OrganizationPeer reviewe

The Effectiveness of Real Estate Market Versus Efficiency of Its Participants

This paper attempts to prove the following hypothesis: the effectiveness of a real estate market may be identified by analysing the effectiveness of its participants. The authors also discuss methods based on the rough set theory which can influence the efficiency and efficacy of market participants, and consequently, the effectiveness of the real estate market and its participants

Evaluating urban freight transport policies within complex urban environments

Urban Freight Transport (UFT) entails significant advantages for the economic growth of cities, but can also hamper population quality of life, obstructing vehicles and people movements while exacerbating environmental problems. Many initiatives have been engaged by many city administrators in order to efficiently manage UFT, evaluating different policies at a global scale. From the perspective of operators, most works analyze a limited set of policies or only focus on the benefits of companies. In this work, a decisionmaking process is used to evaluate a large set of UFT policies, through different attributes representing the advantages and limitations of each policy over promoter companies and the society. To do so, an ex-ante procedure in five steps is proposed to classify the policies: (1) attributes definition, (2) attributes weighting, (3) policy-attribute assessment, (4) policy ranking, and (5) feasibility threshold satisfaction. The whole process is supported on consultations to 26 experts regarding shop supply and restocking activities within complex urban environments. Results show a classification of the analyzed policies, according to their suitability for implementation ; which could be extended (directly or with small adjustments) to other contexts, given the flexibility of the decision-making procedure developed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Final report on the farmer's aid in plant disease diagnoses

This report is the final report on the FAD project. The FAD project was initiated in september 1985 to test the expert system shell Babylon by developing a prototype crop disease diagnosis system in it. A short overview of the history of the project and the main problems encountered is given in chapter 1. Chapter 2 describes the result of an attempt to integrate JSD with modelling techniques like generalisation and aggregation and chapter 3 concentrates on the method we used to elicit phytopathological knowledge from specialists. Chapter 4 gives the result of knowledge acquisition for the 10 wheat diseases most commonly occurring in the Netherlands. The user interface is described briefly in chapter 5 and chapter 6 gives an overview of the additions to the implementation we made to the version of FAD reported in our second report. Chapter 7, finally, summarises the conclusions of the project and gives recommendations for follow-up projects

Modelling and optimizing multiple attribute decisions by using fuzzy sets

The purpose of this paper is to present a coherent perspective of modeling and optimizing multiple attribute decisions by using fuzzy sets. In management practice we face most of the time the situation in which a problem have several possible solutions and each solution can be analyzed using multiple criteria models. In the same time, in real life decision making process there is a given level of uncertainty which makes difficult a clear cut analytical analysis. The object of this article is to build a model approach for making multiple criteria decision using fuzzy sets of objects. Elaborating multiple attribute decisions involves performing an assessment and selecting from a given and finite set of possible alternative courses of action in the presence of a given and finite, and usually conflicting set of attributes and criteria.decision making, fuzzy sets, modeling, multiple criteria optimization.