Type-2 neutrosophic number based multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) approach for offshore wind farm site selection in USA.

The technical, logistical, and ecological challenges associated with offshore wind development necessitate an extensive site selection analysis. Technical parameters such as wind resource, logistical concerns such as distance to shore, and ecological considerations such as fisheries all must be evaluated and weighted, in many cases with incomplete or uncertain data. Making such a critical decision with severe potential economic and ecologic consequences requires a strong decision-making approach to ultimately guide the site selection process. This paper proposes a type-2 neutrosophic number (T2NN) fuzzy based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model for offshore wind farm (OWF) site selection. This approach combines the advantages of neutrosophic numbers sets, which can utilize uncertain and incomplete information, with a multi-attributive border approximation area comparison that provides formulation flexibility and easy calculation. Further, this study develops and integrates a techno-economic model for OWFs in the decision-making. A case study is performed to evaluate and rank five proposed OWF sites off the coast of New Jersey. To validate the proposed model, a comparison against three alternative T2NN fuzzy based models is performed. It is demonstrated that the implemented model yields the same ranking order as the alternative approaches. Sensitivity analysis reveals that changing criteria weightings does not affect the ranking order

Modelling of and empirical studies on portfolio choice, option pricing, and credit risk

This thesis develops and applies a statistical spanning test for mean-coherent regular risk portfolios. Similarly in spirt to Huberman and Kandel (1987), this test can be implemented by means of a simple semi-parametric instrumental variable regression, where instruments have a direct link with a stochastic discount factor. Applications to different asset classes are studied. The results are compared to the conventional mean-variance approach. The second part of the thesis concerns option pricing under stochastic volatility and credit risk modelling. It is shown that modelling dynamics of the implied prices of volatility risk can improve out-of-sample option pricing performance. Finally, an equity-based structural model of credit risk with a constant elasticity of volatility assumption is discussed. This model might be particularly suitable for analysis of high yield fixed income instruments, where correlation between credit spreads and equity returns is substantial.

System Qualities Ontology, Tradespace and Affordability (SQOTA) Project – Phase 4

This task was proposed and established as a result of a pair of 2012 workshops sponsored by the DoD Engineered Resilient Systems technology priority area and by the SERC. The workshops focused on how best to strengthen DoD’s capabilities in dealing with its systems’ non-functional requirements, often also called system qualities, properties, levels of service, and –ilities. The term –ilities was often used during the workshops, and became the title of the resulting SERC research task: “ilities Tradespace and Affordability Project (iTAP).” As the project progressed, the term “ilities” often became a source of confusion, as in “Do your results include considerations of safety, security, resilience, etc., which don’t have “ility” in their names?” Also, as our ontology, methods, processes, and tools became of interest across the DoD and across international and standards communities, we found that the term “System Qualities” was most often used. As a result, we are changing the name of the project to “System Qualities Ontology, Tradespace, and Affordability (SQOTA).” Some of this year’s university reports still refer to the project as “iTAP.”This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract HQ0034-13-D-0004.This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract HQ0034-13-D-0004

Modelling of and Empirical Studies on Portfolio Choice, Option Pricing, and Credit Risk.

This thesis develops and applies a statistical spanning test for mean-coherent regular risk portfolios. Similarly in spirt to Huberman and Kandel (1987), this test can be implemented by means of a simple semi-parametric instrumental variable regression, where instruments have a direct link with a stochastic discount factor. Applications to different asset classes are studied. The results are compared to the conventional mean-variance approach. The second part of the thesis concerns option pricing under stochastic volatility and credit risk modelling. It is shown that modelling dynamics of the implied prices of volatility risk can improve out-of-sample option pricing performance. Finally, an equity-based structural model of credit risk with a constant elasticity of volatility assumption is discussed. This model might be particularly suitable for analysis of high yield fixed income instruments, where correlation between credit spreads and equity returns is substantial.

The impact of online reputation on hotel profitability

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to quantify the impact of online customer reputation on financial profitability. Design/methodology/approach: Online reputation is captured by extracting the most recurring textual themes associated with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, expressed within positive vs negative online guest reviews on Booking.com. Latent semantic analysis is used for textual analysis. Proxies of overall financial performance are manually constructed for the sample hotels, using financial data from the Financial Analysis Made Easy (FAME) database. Ordinary least squares is used to gauge the effect of online customer reputation on financial profitability. Findings: Empirical findings indicate that recurring textual themes from positive online reviews (in contrast to negative reviews) exhibit a higher degree of homogeneity and consensus. The themes repeated in positive, but not in negative reviews, are found to significantly associate with hotel financial performance. Results contribute to the discussion about the measurable effect of online reputation on financial performance. Originality/value: Contemporary quantitative methods are used to extract online reputation for a sample of UK hotels and associate this reputation with bottom-line financial profitability. The relationship between online reputation, as manifested within hotel guest reviews, and the financial performance of hotels is examined. Financial profitability is the result of revenues, reduced by the costs incurred in order to be able to offer a given level of service. Previous studies have mainly focused on basic measures of performance, i.e. revenue generation, rather than bottom-line profitability. By combining online guest reviews from travel websites (Booking.com) with financial measures of enterprise performance (FAME), this study makes a meaningful contribution to the strategic management of hotel businesses

The evaluation performance for commercial banks by intuitionistic fuzzy numbers: the case of Spain

In a globalized world, the banking sector has been forced to advance not only in financial performance, but also in non-financial performance, especially in sustainability criteria. For this purpose, multicriteria decision methods are especially suited to evaluate efficiency and to make a stable ranking of the most outstanding banks in the Spanish financial system. However, we are aware of the difficulties involved due to the inherent uncertainty and subjectivity of this process. For this reason, the use of fuzzy models is proposed, especially intuitionistic fuzzy numbers combined with the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the TOPSIS. The combination of financial criteria based on the CAMELS rating system with non-financial sustainability criteria makes it possible to order the Spanish banking system based on global efficiency. The most relevant contributions are: first, the use of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers in the performance evaluation process, whereby the quality of the information available can be quantified; and the most important one, a simplification of the process in the implementation of the intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS. Finally, through a sensibility analysis, it is possible to isolate the relevance of the sustainability process to obtain the global performance evaluation

Financial Distress, Prediction, and Strategies by Firms: A Systematic Review of Literature

The paper is systematic scrutiny of studies on financial distress, prediction, and strategies firms adapt to deal with the difficulty. To this end, the paper offers a dissection and assortment of 72 articles published between 2005 and 2017 in Scopus, Web of Science, and Science Direct. The authors chose the three databases as articles that are published only in indexed journals. The studies were selected based on the key terms "financial distress", "financial strategies", "financial distress prediction", and "financial distress strategies". The selected articles were evaluated based on seven categories: content, methodology, scope, and data analysis techniques, study period, study focus, and data analyzed. The evaluation and assortment of studies identified existing disparities in the literature on financial distress, offering opportunities for future researchers. Exceptional articles on financial challenges, prediction, and strategies adopted by firms were identified. The study finds that most of the studies centered on mature economies, whereas those on emerging markets-focused only on Asian markets. Equally, there are very few qualitative studies on the subject matter. Through the study, the authors paint a picture of existing literature on the subject matter; further, the authors expect the review to stimulate debate and further research among scholars

On Excessive Mathematization, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Philosophical bases for Real World Knowledge

International audienceSeveral articles on the misuse of mathematics in economics have already appeared in this journal. They all denounce this excess and list numerous weaknesses of liberal economics and theoretical economics that are due to, or at least related to, too much math. My thesis is that economics adds its own particular difficulties to these issues (because of its status as "conseiller du prince", and because through teaching it gives useful professional skills, etc.) and that things become clearer when we step back and frame the question in terms of knowledge in general. As the reader will see, this enables us to trace, with great epistemological force, the direction of a different type of knowledge. This allows us to escape from the addiction of mathematization while building a better quality knowledge. We will take in a number of examples in economics and finance, but the fact remains that economics has many distinctive characteristics, as several authors have noted, which tend to prevent a reasoned consideration of its social function. Consequently there remain several points that will need to be developed further.Plusieurs articles sur l'usage abusif des mathématiques en économie ont déjà paru dans cette revue. Tous dénoncent de nombreuses faiblesses de l'économie libérale et de l'économie théoriques dues, ou au moins liées à, un excès de maths. Ma thèse est que l'économie ajoute ses propres difficultés particulières à cette question (en raison de son statut de "conseiller du prince", et parce qu'elle donne, par l'enseignement, des compétences professionnelles utiles, etc) et que les choses deviennent plus claires quand nous prenons du recul et posant la question pour la connaissance en général. Comme le lecteur pourra le constater, ceci nous permet de retracer, avec plus de force épistémologique, la direction d'un autre type de connaissances. On peut échapper à la dépendance de la mathématisation tout en construisant une connaissance meilleure qualité. Nous allons prendre un certain nombre d'exemples en économie et finance, mais le fait demeure que l'économie a de nombreuses caractéristiques distinctives, comme plusieurs auteurs l'ont noté, qui tendent à empêcher un examen sérieux de sa fonction sociale. Par conséquent, il reste plusieurs points qui restent à élucider davantage

MCDM approach for assessing the sustainability of buildings' facades

Construction industry is known to cause major social, economic and environmental impacts on the society so that promoting sustainable construction practice affects positively and allows generating a balance among these pillars. Besides, to achieve sustainability goals in a building project, the stakeholders' needs and expectations have to be met and taken into consideration. One of the main and largest components of a building, which could highly contribute to the sustainability performance of the whole building is the facade. Previous studies confirmed the predominant role of facades in minimizing environmental effects and decreasing buildings' costs as well as providing comfort for inhabitants. Despite the impact of facades on sustainability, indicators that govern the performance of the pillars are often dismissed or, if considered, these are rather subjectively measured - especially those associated with the social requirement. On the other hand, the vast majority of the existing tools fail at considering stakeholders' satisfaction in the assessment and selection process of optimal facade systems. Within this context, a new comprehensive approach to quantify the sustainability index of facade systems including the most representative economic, environmental and social indicators and integrating the stakeholders’ satisfaction was developed. The approach is based on MIVES (Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment), a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model, which allows minimizing the subjectivity in the decision-making process and relies on the value function concept. This new approach was particularly optimized for residential building facades and successfully validated by analyzing five residential facade systems commonly used in Barcelona. The model is applicable for other countries and cities as well. Furthermore, through assessing the sustainability of two real buildings and validating the goodness of the results, the applicability of this approach was demonstrated. The results proved several capabilities and potentials of the model, these being: (1) quantify, objectively, the sustainability of facade systems from the economic, environmental and social perspectives involving the stakeholders’ preferences and (2), identify strengths and weaknesses of facades that would allow implementing improving measures. The proposed approach was designed to be a decisive support for decision-making in the field of facade management. Findings confirm that the approach is valuable and suitable for use in practice by public and private stakeholders. Future works could be to develop a digital application for building and architectural offices so that these could consider sustainability in the design, assessment and selection processes of facades to make the best decision. Next research steps could also adapt this approach to other types of buildings in order to move towards more sustainable architecture and construction.Es sabido que la industria de la construcción causa importantes impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales en la sociedad, por lo que promover prácticas de construcción sostenibles tiene efectos positivos y permite generar un equilibrio entre estos tres pilares de la sostenibilidad. Además, para lograr los objetivos de sostenibilidad en un proyecto de construcción, las necesidades y expectativas de las partes y profesionales implicados deben cumplirse y tomarse en consideración. Uno de los componentes principales y de más envergadura de un edificio, que podría contribuir en gran medida al comportamiento sostenible de todo el edificio es la fachada. Hay estudios previos que han confirmado el papel predominante de las fachadas a la hora de minimizar los efectos ambientales y disminuir los costos de los edificios, además de proporcionar comodidad a los habitantes. A pesar del impacto de las fachadas en la sostenibilidad, los indicadores que rigen el desempeño de los pilares a menudo se descartan o, si se consideran, se miden de manera bastante subjetiva, especialmente aquellos asociados con los aspectos sociales. Por otro lado, la gran mayoría de las herramientas existentes no tienen en cuenta la satisfacción de las partes interesadas en el proceso de evaluación y selección de sistemas de fachada óptimos. En este contexto, se ha desarrollado un nuevo modelo integral para cuantificar el índice de sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada, incluyendo los indicadores económicos, ambientales y sociales más representativos e integrando la satisfacción de las partes interesadas. El modelo se basa en MIVES, un modelo de toma de decisiones multi criterio (MCDM), que permite minimizar la subjetividad en el proceso de toma de decisiones y se basa en el concepto de función de valor. Este nuevo modelo ha sido especialmente optimizado para fachadas de edificios residenciales y validado con éxito mediante el análisis de cinco sistemas de fachadas residenciales de uso común en Barcelona. El modelo es aplicable a otros países y ciudades también. Además, al evaluar la sostenibilidad de dos edificios reales y validar la bondad de los resultados, se ha probado la aplicabilidad de este modelo. Los resultados han demostrado varias capacidades y potenciales del modelo, como son: (1) cuantificar, objetivamente, la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada desde las perspectivas económicas, ambientales y sociales que involucran las preferencias de las partes interesadas y (2), identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las fachadas, lo que permitiría implementar medidas de mejora. El enfoque propuesto ha sido diseñado para ser un soporte decisivo para la toma de decisiones en el campo de la gestión de fachadas. Los resultados confirman que el enfoque es valioso y adecuado para su uso en la práctica por parte de las partes interesadas públicas y privadas. Los trabajos futuros podrían ser desarrollar una aplicación digital para estudios de arquitectura y edificación para que estos estudios puedan considerar la sostenibilidad en los procesos de diseño, evaluación y selección de fachadas con el objetivo de tomar la mejor decisión. Los próximos pasos de investigación también podrían adaptar este enfoque a otros tipos de edificios para avanzar hacia una arquitectura y construcción más sostenible.Postprint (published version

MCDM approach for assessing the sustainability of buildings' facades

Construction industry is known to cause major social, economic and environmental impacts on the society so that promoting sustainable construction practice affects positively and allows generating a balance among these pillars. Besides, to achieve sustainability goals in a building project, the stakeholders' needs and expectations have to be met and taken into consideration. One of the main and largest components of a building, which could highly contribute to the sustainability performance of the whole building is the facade. Previous studies confirmed the predominant role of facades in minimizing environmental effects and decreasing buildings' costs as well as providing comfort for inhabitants. Despite the impact of facades on sustainability, indicators that govern the performance of the pillars are often dismissed or, if considered, these are rather subjectively measured - especially those associated with the social requirement. On the other hand, the vast majority of the existing tools fail at considering stakeholders' satisfaction in the assessment and selection process of optimal facade systems. Within this context, a new comprehensive approach to quantify the sustainability index of facade systems including the most representative economic, environmental and social indicators and integrating the stakeholders’ satisfaction was developed. The approach is based on MIVES (Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment), a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model, which allows minimizing the subjectivity in the decision-making process and relies on the value function concept. This new approach was particularly optimized for residential building facades and successfully validated by analyzing five residential facade systems commonly used in Barcelona. The model is applicable for other countries and cities as well. Furthermore, through assessing the sustainability of two real buildings and validating the goodness of the results, the applicability of this approach was demonstrated. The results proved several capabilities and potentials of the model, these being: (1) quantify, objectively, the sustainability of facade systems from the economic, environmental and social perspectives involving the stakeholders’ preferences and (2), identify strengths and weaknesses of facades that would allow implementing improving measures. The proposed approach was designed to be a decisive support for decision-making in the field of facade management. Findings confirm that the approach is valuable and suitable for use in practice by public and private stakeholders. Future works could be to develop a digital application for building and architectural offices so that these could consider sustainability in the design, assessment and selection processes of facades to make the best decision. Next research steps could also adapt this approach to other types of buildings in order to move towards more sustainable architecture and construction.Es sabido que la industria de la construcción causa importantes impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales en la sociedad, por lo que promover prácticas de construcción sostenibles tiene efectos positivos y permite generar un equilibrio entre estos tres pilares de la sostenibilidad. Además, para lograr los objetivos de sostenibilidad en un proyecto de construcción, las necesidades y expectativas de las partes y profesionales implicados deben cumplirse y tomarse en consideración. Uno de los componentes principales y de más envergadura de un edificio, que podría contribuir en gran medida al comportamiento sostenible de todo el edificio es la fachada. Hay estudios previos que han confirmado el papel predominante de las fachadas a la hora de minimizar los efectos ambientales y disminuir los costos de los edificios, además de proporcionar comodidad a los habitantes. A pesar del impacto de las fachadas en la sostenibilidad, los indicadores que rigen el desempeño de los pilares a menudo se descartan o, si se consideran, se miden de manera bastante subjetiva, especialmente aquellos asociados con los aspectos sociales. Por otro lado, la gran mayoría de las herramientas existentes no tienen en cuenta la satisfacción de las partes interesadas en el proceso de evaluación y selección de sistemas de fachada óptimos. En este contexto, se ha desarrollado un nuevo modelo integral para cuantificar el índice de sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada, incluyendo los indicadores económicos, ambientales y sociales más representativos e integrando la satisfacción de las partes interesadas. El modelo se basa en MIVES, un modelo de toma de decisiones multi criterio (MCDM), que permite minimizar la subjetividad en el proceso de toma de decisiones y se basa en el concepto de función de valor. Este nuevo modelo ha sido especialmente optimizado para fachadas de edificios residenciales y validado con éxito mediante el análisis de cinco sistemas de fachadas residenciales de uso común en Barcelona. El modelo es aplicable a otros países y ciudades también. Además, al evaluar la sostenibilidad de dos edificios reales y validar la bondad de los resultados, se ha probado la aplicabilidad de este modelo. Los resultados han demostrado varias capacidades y potenciales del modelo, como son: (1) cuantificar, objetivamente, la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada desde las perspectivas económicas, ambientales y sociales que involucran las preferencias de las partes interesadas y (2), identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las fachadas, lo que permitiría implementar medidas de mejora. El enfoque propuesto ha sido diseñado para ser un soporte decisivo para la toma de decisiones en el campo de la gestión de fachadas. Los resultados confirman que el enfoque es valioso y adecuado para su uso en la práctica por parte de las partes interesadas públicas y privadas. Los trabajos futuros podrían ser desarrollar una aplicación digital para estudios de arquitectura y edificación para que estos estudios puedan considerar la sostenibilidad en los procesos de diseño, evaluación y selección de fachadas con el objetivo de tomar la mejor decisión. Los próximos pasos de investigación también podrían adaptar este enfoque a otros tipos de edificios para avanzar hacia una arquitectura y construcción más sostenible