Traveller Behaviour: Decision making in an unpredictable world

This paper discusses the nature and consequences of uncertainty in transport systems. Drawing on work from a number of fields, it addresses travellers’ abilities to predict variable phenomena, their perception of uncertainty, their attitude to risk and the various strategies they might adopt in response to uncertainty. It is argued that despite the increased interest in the representation of uncertainty in transport systems, most models treat uncertainty as a purely statistical issue and ignore the psychological aspects of response to uncertainty. The principle theories and models currently used to predict travellers’ response to uncertainty are presented and number of alternative modelling approaches are outlined. It is argued that the current generation of predictive models do not provide an adequate basis for forecasting response to changes in the degree of uncertainty or for predicting the likely effect of providing additional information. A number of alternative modelling approaches are identified to deal with travellers’ acquisition of information, the definition of their choice set and their choice between the available options. The use of heuristic approaches is recommended as an alternative to more conventional probabilistic methods

Optimal football strategies: AC Milan versus FC Barcelona

In a recent UEFA Champions League game between AC Milan and FC Barcelona, played in Italy (final score 2-3), the collected match statistics, classified into four offensive and two defensive strategies, were in favour of FC Barcelona (by 13 versus 8 points). The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent the optimal game strategies derived from some deterministic, possibilistic, stochastic and fuzzy LP models would improve the payoff of AC Milan at the cost of FC Barcelona.football game; offensive & defensive strategies; Deterministic LP; fuzzy LP; stochastic LP; Nash equilibria;

Overview and classification of coordination contracts within forward and reverse supply chains

Among coordination mechanisms, contracts are valuable tools used in both theory and practice to coordinate various supply chains. The focus of this paper is to present an overview of contracts and a classification of coordination contracts and contracting literature in the form of classification schemes. The two criteria used for contract classification, as resulted from contracting literature, are transfer payment contractual incentives and inventory risk sharing. The overview classification of the existing literature has as criteria the level of detail used in designing the coordination models with applicability on the forward and reverse supply chains.Coordination contracts; forward supply chain; reverse supply chain

The Symmetric Sugeno Integral

We propose an extension of the Sugeno integral for negative numbers, in the spirit of the symmetric extension of Choquet integral, also called \Sipos\ integral. Our framework is purely ordinal, since the Sugeno integral has its interest when the underlying structure is ordinal. We begin by defining negative numbers on a linearly ordered set, and we endow this new structure with a suitable algebra, very close to the ring of real numbers. In a second step, we introduce the Möbius transform on this new structure. Lastly, we define the symmetric Sugeno integral, and show its similarity with the symmetric Choquet integral.

A Survey of Adaptive Resonance Theory Neural Network Models for Engineering Applications

This survey samples from the ever-growing family of adaptive resonance theory (ART) neural network models used to perform the three primary machine learning modalities, namely, unsupervised, supervised and reinforcement learning. It comprises a representative list from classic to modern ART models, thereby painting a general picture of the architectures developed by researchers over the past 30 years. The learning dynamics of these ART models are briefly described, and their distinctive characteristics such as code representation, long-term memory and corresponding geometric interpretation are discussed. Useful engineering properties of ART (speed, configurability, explainability, parallelization and hardware implementation) are examined along with current challenges. Finally, a compilation of online software libraries is provided. It is expected that this overview will be helpful to new and seasoned ART researchers

A Multicriteria Approach for the Evaluation of the Sustainability of Re-use of Historic Buildings in Venice

The paper presents a multiple criteria model for the evaluation of the sustainability of projects for the economic re-use of historical buildings in Venice. The model utilises the relevant parameters for the appraisal of sustainability, aggregated into three macro-indicators: intrinsic sustainability, context sustainability and economic-financial feasibility. The model has been calibrated by a panel of experts and tested on two reuse hypotheses of the Old Arsenal in Venice. The tests have proven the model to be a useful support in the early stages of evaluation of re-use projects, where economic improvements are to be combined with conservation, as it supports the identification of critical points and the selection of projects, thus providing not only a check-list of variables to be considered, but an appraisal of trade-offs between economic uses and requirements of conservation.Economic Reuse, Historical Building Conservation

"The connection between distortion risk measures and ordered weighted averaging operators"

Distortion risk measures summarize the risk of a loss distribution by means of a single value. In fuzzy systems, the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) and Weighted Ordered Weighted Averaging (WOWA) operators are used to aggregate a large number of fuzzy rules into a single value. We show that these concepts can be derived from the Choquet integral, and then the mathematical relationship between distortion risk measures and the OWA and WOWA operators for discrete and nite random variables is presented. This connection oers a new interpretation of distortion risk measures and, in particular, Value-at-Risk and Tail Value-at-Risk can be understood from an aggregation operator perspective. The theoretical results are illustrated in an example and the degree of orness concept is discussed.Fuzzy systems; Degree of orness; Risk quantification; Discrete random variable JEL classification:C02,C60

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE