Assessing framing of uncertainties in water management practice

Dealing with uncertainties in water management is an important issue and is one which will only increase in light of global changes, particularly climate change. So far, uncertainties in water management have mostly been assessed from a scientific point of view, and in quantitative terms. In this paper, we focus on the perspectives from water management practice, adopting a qualitative approach. We consider it important to know how uncertainties are framed in water management practice in order to develop practice relevant strategies for dealing with uncertainties. Framing refers to how people make sense of the world. With the aim of identifying what are important parameters for the framing of uncertainties in water management practice, in this paper we analyze uncertainty situations described by decision-makers in water management. The analysis builds on a series of ¿Uncertainty Dialogues¿ carried out within the NeWater project with water managers in the Rhine, Elbe and Guadiana basins in 2006. During these dialogues, representatives of these river basins were asked what uncertainties they encountered in their professional work life and how they confronted them. Analysing these dialogues we identified several important parameters of how uncertainties get framed. Our assumption is that making framing of uncertainty explicit for water managers will allow for better dealing with the respective uncertainty situations. Keywords Framing - Uncertainty - Water management practic

SOLACE: A framework for electronic negotiations

Copyright @ 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbHMost existing frameworks for electronic negotiations today are tied to specific negotiation systems for which they were developed, preventing them from being applied to other negotiation scenarios. Thus, the evaluation of electronic negotiation systems is difficult as each one is based on a different framework. Additionally, each developer has to design a new framework for any system to be developed, leading to a ‘reinvention of the wheel’. This paper presents SOLACE—a generic framework for multi-issue negotiations, which can be applied to a variety of negotiation scenarios. In contrast with other frameworks for electronic negotiations, SOLACE supports hybrid systems in which the negotiation participants can be humans, agents or a combination of the two. By recognizing the importance of strategies in negotiations and incorporating a time attribute in negotiation proposals, SOLACE enhances existing approaches and provides a foundation for the flexible electronic negotiation systems of the future

Integrated assessment of biological invasions

An assessment of the consequences of biological invasions and of the measures taken against must be at the base of each social decision in this field. Three forms of uncertainty can be distinguished that make such a decision difficult to take: (1) factual uncertainty, which encompasses not only risk, but also unknown probabilities of known consequences, and unknown consequences, (2) individual uncertainty, i.e. insecurity about the values to consider, and about the form how to consider them, and (3) social actor uncertainty, i.e. uncertainty about the social actors to consider and how to do it. This paper furnishes axiomatic reflections about the difficulties of assessments integrating these three uncertainties. Using this analytical separation, it restructures two main assessment techniques, and herewith shows the main differences between cost-benefit-analysis and multi-criteria decision aid in supporting public decisions about biological invasions. It is shown that the main difference between cost-benefit-analysis, the classical economic decision support, and multi-criteria decision analysis is less its mono- vs. multi-criteria approach, but its facility to be embedded in a social decision context. With multicriteria decision aid it is more facile to lay open the uncertainties in all three dimensions and to make them an explicit topic for public discourse. Therefore, it seems more suitable as an assessment method for biological invasions. --Biodiversity,Multi-criteria analysis,Uncertainty,Integrated Assessment,Biological Invasion,Cost-benefit analysis

On Incomplete Fuzzy and Multiplicative Preference Relations In Multi-Person Decision Making

This research work has been developed with the financing of FEDER funds in FUZZYLING-II Project TIN2010- 17876, the Andalusian Excellence Projects TIC-05299 and TIC-5991 and the mobility grant program awarded by the University of Granada ’s International Office.2nd International Conference on Information Technology and Quantitative Management, ITQM 2014Rapid changes in the business environment such us the globalization as well as the increasing necessity to make crucial decisions involving a huge range of alternatives in short period of time or even in real time have made that computerized group decision support systems become very useful tools. However in the majority of the cases the panel of experts cannot provide all the information about their preferences due to different reasons such as lack of knowledge, time etc. Therefore different approaches have been presented to deal with the missing preferences in group decision making contexts. In this paper we review and analyse the state-of-the-art research efforts carried out on this topic for incomplete fuzzy preference relations and multiplicative preference relations.FEDER funds in FUZZYLING-II Project TIN2010- 17876Andalusian Excellence Projects TIC-05299 and TIC-5991Mobility grant program awarded by the University of Granada ’s International Offic

Managing Incomplete Preference Relations in Decision Making: A Review and Future Trends

In decision making, situations where all experts are able to efficiently express their preferences over all the available options are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, the above scenario requires all experts to possess a precise or sufficient level of knowledge of the whole problem to tackle, including the ability to discriminate the degree up to which some options are better than others. These assumptions can be seen unrealistic in many decision making situations, especially those involving a large number of alternatives to choose from and/or conflicting and dynamic sources of information. Some methodologies widely adopted in these situations are to discard or to rate more negatively those experts that provide preferences with missing values. However, incomplete information is not equivalent to low quality information, and consequently these methodologies could lead to biased or even bad solutions since useful information might not being taken properly into account in the decision process. Therefore, alternative approaches to manage incomplete preference relations that estimates the missing information in decision making are desirable and possible. This paper presents and analyses methods and processes developed on this area towards the estimation of missing preferences in decision making, and highlights some areas for future research

A framework for understanding the factors influencing pair programming success

Pair programming is one of the more controversial aspects of several Agile system development methods, in particular eXtreme Programming (XP). Various studies have assessed factors that either drive the success or suggest advantages (and disadvantages) of pair programming. In this exploratory study the literature on pair programming is examined and factors distilled. These factors are then compared and contrasted with those discovered in our recent Delphi study of pair programming. Gallis et al. (2003) have proposed an initial framework aimed at providing a comprehensive identification of the major factors impacting team programming situations including pair programming. However, this study demonstrates that the framework should be extended to include an additional category of factors that relate to organizational matters. These factors will be further refined, and used to develop and empirically evaluate a conceptual model of pair programming (success)

Why, what, and how? case study on law, risk, and decision making as necessary themes in built environment teaching

The paper considers (and defends) the necessity of including legal studies as a core part of built environment undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. The writer reflects upon his own experience as a lawyer working alongside and advising built environment professionals in complex land remediation and site safety management situations in the United Kingdom and explains how themes of liability, risk, and decision making can be integrated into a practical simulation in order to underpin more traditional lecture-based law teaching. Through reflection upon the writer's experiments with simulation-based teaching, the paper suggests some innovations that may better orientate law teaching to engage these themes and, thereby, enhance the relevance of law studies to the future needs of built environment professionals in practice.</p