Integrating multiple criteria decision analysis in participatory forest planning

Forest planning in a participatory context often involves multiple stakeholders with conflicting interests. A promising approach for handling these complex situations is to integrate participatory planning and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The objective of this paper is to analyze strengths and weaknesses of such an integrated approach, focusing on how the use of MCDA has influenced the participatory process. The paper outlines a model for a participatory MCDA process with five steps: stakeholder analysis, structuring of the decision problem, generation of alternatives, elicitation of preferences, and ranking of alternatives. This model was applied in a case study of a planning process for the urban forest in Lycksele, Sweden. In interviews with stakeholders, criteria for four different social groups were identified. Stakeholders also identified specific areas important to them and explained what activities the areas were used for and the forest management they wished for there. Existing forest data were combined with information from interviews to create a map in which the urban forest was divided into zones of different management classes. Three alternative strategic forest plans were produced based on the zonal map. The stakeholders stated their preferences individually by the Analytic Hierarchy Process in inquiry forms and a ranking of alternatives and consistency ratios were determined for each stakeholder. Rankings of alternatives were aggregated; first, for each social group using the arithmetic mean, and then an overall aggregated ranking was calculated from the group rankings using the weighted arithmetic mean. The participatory MCDA process in Lycksele is assessed against five social goals: incorporating public values into decisions, improving the substantive quality of decisions, resolving conflict among competing interests, building trust in institutions, and educating and informing the public. The results and assessment of the case study support the integration of participatory planning and MCDA as a viable option for handling complex forest-management situations. Key issues related to the MCDA methodology that need to be explored further were identified: 1) The handling of place-specific criteria, 2) development of alternatives, 3) the aggregation of individual preferences into a common preference, and 4) application and evaluation of the integrated approach in real case studies

Iterative Voting, Control and Sentiment Analysis

In multi-agent systems agents often need to take a collective decision based on the preferences of individuals. A voting rule is used to decide which decision to take, mapping the agents' preferences over the possible candidate decisions into a winning decision for the collection of agents. In these kind of scenarios acting strategically can be seen in two opposite way. On one hand it may be desirable that agents do not have any incentive to act strategically. That is, to misreport their preferences in order to influence the result of the voting rule in their favor or acting on the structure of the election to change the outcome. On the other hand manipulation can be used to improve the quality of the outcome by enlarging the consensus of the winner. These two different scenarios are studied in this thesis. The first one by modeling and describing a natural form of control named ``replacement control'' and characterizing for several voting rules its computational complexity. The second scenario is studied in the form of iterative voting frameworks where individuals are allowed to change their preferences to change the outcome of the election. Computational social choice techniques can be used in very different scenarios. This work reports a first attempt to introduce the use of voting procedures in the field of sentiment analysis. In this area computer scientists extract the opinion of the community about a specific item. This opinion is extracted aggregating the opinion expressed by each individual which leaves a text in a blog or social network about the given item. We studied and proposed a new aggregation method which can improve performances of sentiment analysis, this new technique is a new variance of a well-known voting rule called Borda

Towards more inclusive long-term bulk water resource management

Fresh water resources provide a platform for complex and often emotional issues to develop, particularly in resource scarcity situations. Bulk water infrastructure contains elements of a public good and proved vulnerable to failures in market and government driven allocation strategies. Common to both are uncaptured costs and benefits due to shortcomings in cost quantification techniques. Natural ecosystems stands to lose the most since ecosystem services are often not quantifiable in monetary terms and therefore neglected in allocation decision-making. This paper took on the challenge of expanding current decision-support in order to promote more inclusive long-term water management. A case-study approach with the focus on a choice related problem regarding different long-term bulk water resource management options was applied in the Western Cape province. The paper incorporated components of economic valuation theory, a public survey and a modified Delphi expert panel technique. Both spatial and temporal dimensions of the decision-making context were expanded. Two surveys were completed to accommodate these expansions. The first focused on public preference in water allocation management and the relative merit of accommodating public preference in highly specialised decision-making such as long-term water allocation decision-making. The second survey utilized a modified Delphi technique in which an expert panel indicated the relative merit of two alternative long-term allocation strategies. A willingness to pay for 'greener' water was observed and may be used to motivate a paradigm shift from management's perspective to consider, without fear of harming their own political position, 'greener' water supply options more seriously even if these options imply higher direct costs to public.water management, decision-support, public participation, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Towards cooperative urban traffic management: Investigating voting for travel groups

In den letzten Jahrzehnten haben intelligente Verkehrssysteme an Bedeutung gewonnen. Wir betrachten einen Teilbereich des kooperativen Verkehrsmanagements, nämlich kollektive Entscheidungsfindung in Gruppen von Verkehrsteilnehmern. In dem uns interessierenden Szenario werden Touristen, die eine Stadt besuchen, gebeten, Reisegruppen zu bilden und sich auf gemeinsame Besuchsziele (Points of Interest) zu einigen. Wir konzentrieren uns auf Wählen als Gruppenentscheidungsverfahren. Unsere Fragestellung ist, wie sich verschiedene Algorithmen zur Bildung von Reisegruppen und zur Bestimmung gemeinsamer Reiseziele hinsichtlich der System- und Benutzerziele unterscheiden, wobei wir als Systemziel große Gruppen und als Benutzerziele hohe präferenzbasierte Zufriedenheit und geringen organisatorischen Aufwand definieren. Wir streben an, einen Kompromiss zwischen System- und Benutzerzielen zu erreichen. Neu ist, dass wir die inhärenten Auswirkungen verschiedener Wahlregeln, Wahlprotokolle und Gruppenbildungsalgorithmen auf Benutzer- und Systemziele untersuchen. Altere Arbeiten zur kollektiven Entscheidungsfindung im Verkehr konzentrieren sich auf andere Zielgrößen, betrachten nicht die Gruppenbildung, vergleichen nicht die Auswirkungen mehrerer Wahlalgorithmen, benutzen andere Wahlalgorithmen, berücksichtigen nicht klar definierte Gruppen von Verkehrsteilnehmern, verwenden Wahlen für andere Anwendungen oder betrachten andere Algorithmen zur kollektiven Entscheidungsfindung als Wahlen. Wir untersuchen in der Hauptsimulationsreihe verschiedene Gruppenbildungsalgorithmen, Wahlprotokolle und Komiteewahlregeln. Wir betrachten sequentielle Gruppenbildung vs. koordinierte Gruppenbildung, Basisprotokoll vs. iteratives Protokoll und die Komiteewahlregeln Minisum-Approval, Minimax-Approval und Minisum-Ranksum. Die Simulationen wurden mit dem neu entwickelten Simulationswerkzeug LightVoting durchgef¨uhrt, das auf dem Multi-Agenten-Framework LightJason basiert. Die Experimente der Hauptsimulationsreihe zeigen, dass die Komiteewahlregel Minisum-Ranksum in den meisten Fällen bessere oder ebenso gute Ergebnisse erzielt wie die Komiteewahlregeln Minisum-Approval und Minimax-Approval. Das iterative Protokoll tendiert dazu, eine Verbesserung hinsichtlich der präferenzbasierten Zufriedenheit zu erbringen, auf Kosten einer deutlichen Verschlechterung hinsichtlich der Gruppengröße. Die koordinierte Gruppenbildung tendiert dazu, eine Verbesserung hinsichtlich der präferenzbasierten Zufriedenheit zu erbringen bei relativ geringen Kosten in Bezug auf die Gruppengröße. Dies führt uns dazu, die Komiteewahlregel Minisum-Ranksum, das Basisprotokoll und die koordinierte Gruppenbildung zu empfehlen, um einen Kompromiss zwischen System- und Benutzerzielen zu erreichen. Wir demonstrieren auch die Auswirkungen verschiedener Kombinationen von Gruppenbildungsalgorithmen und Wahlprotokollen auf die Reisekosten. Hier bietet die Kombination aus Basisprotokoll und koordinierter Gruppenbildung einen Kompromiss zwischen der präferenzbasierten Zufriedenheit und den Reisekosten. Zusätzlich zur Hauptsimulationsreihe bieten wir ein erweitertes Modell an, das die Präferenzen der Reisenden generiert, indem es die Attraktivität der möglichen Ziele und Distanzkosten, basierend auf den Entfernungen zwischen den möglichen Zielen, kombiniert. Als weiteren Anwendungsfall von Wahlverfahren betrachten wir ein Verfahren zur Treffpunktempfehlung, bei dem eine Bewertungs-Wahlregel und eine Minimax-Wahlregel zur Bestimmung von Treffpunkten verwendet werden. Bei kleineren Gruppen ist die durchschnittliche maximale Reisezeit unter der Bewertungs-Wahlregel deutlich höher. Bei größeren Gruppen nimmt der Unterschied ab. Bei kleineren Gruppen ist die durchschnittliche Verspätung für die Gruppe unter der Minimax-Wahlregel hoch, bei größeren Gruppen nimmt sie ab. Es ist also sinnvoll für kleinere Gruppen, die Minimax-Wahlregel zu verwenden, wenn man eine fairere Verteilung der Reisezeiten anstrebt, und die Bewertungs-Wahlregel zu verwenden, wenn das Ziel stattdessen ist, Verzögerungen für die Gruppe zu vermeiden. Für zukünftige Arbeiten wäre es sinnvoll, das Simulationskonzept anzupassen, um reale Bedingungen und Anforderungen berücksichtigen zu können. Weitere Möglichkeiten für zukünftige Arbeiten wären die Betrachtung zusätzlicher Algorithmen und Modelle, wie zum Beispiel die Betrachtung kombinatorischer Wahlen oder die Durchführung von Simulationen auf der Grundlage des erweiterten Modells, die Berücksichtigung der Rolle finanzieller Anreize zur Förderung von Ridesharing oder Platooning und die Nutzung des LightVoting-Tools für weitere Forschungsanwendungen.In the last decades, intelligent transport systems have gained importance. We consider a subarea of cooperative traffic management, namely collective decision-making in groups of traffic participants. In the scenario we are studying, tourists visiting a city are asked to form travel groups and to agree on common points of interest. We focus on voting as a collective decision-making process. Our question is how different algorithms for the formation of travel groups and for determining common travel destinations differ with respect to system and user goals, where we define as system goal large groups and as user goals high preference satisfaction and low organisational effort. We aim at achieving a compromise between system and user goals. What is new is that we investigate the inherent effects of different voting rules, voting protocols and grouping algorithms on user and system goals. Older works on collective decision-making in traffic focus on other target quantities, do not consider group formation, do not compare the effects of several voting algorithms, use other voting algorithms, do not consider clearly defined groups of vehicles, use voting for other applications or use other collective decision-making algorithms than voting. In the main simulation series, we examine different grouping algorithms, voting protocols and committee voting rules. We consider sequential grouping vs. coordinated grouping, basic protocol vs. iterative protocol and the committee voting rules Minisum-Approval, Minimax-Approval and Minisum-Ranksum. The simulations were conducted using the newly developed simulation tool LightVoting, which is based on the multi-agent framework LightJason. The experiments of the main simulation series show that the committee voting rule Minisum-Ranksum in most cases yields better than or as good results as the committee voting rules Minisum-Approval and Minimax-Approval. The iterative protocol tends to yield an improvement regarding preference satisfaction, at the cost of strong deterioriation regarding the group size. The coordinated grouping tends to yield an improvement regarding the preference satisfaction at relative small cost regarding the group size. This leads us to recommend the committee voting rule Minisum-Ranksum, the basic protocol and coordinated grouping in order to achieve a compromise between system and user goals. We also demonstrate the effect of different combinations of grouping algorithms and voting protocols on travel costs. Here, the combination of the basic protocol and coordinated grouping yields a compromise between preference satisfaction and traveller costs. Additionally to the main simulation series, we provide an extended model which generates traveller preferences by combining attractiveness of the points of interest and distance costs based on the distances between the points of interest. As further application of voting, we consider a meeting-point scenario where a range voting rule and a minimax voting rule are used to agree on meeting points. For smaller groups, the average maximum travel time is clearly higher for range voting. For larger groups, the difference decreases. For smaller groups, the average lateness for the group using minimax voting is high, for larger groups it decreases. Hence, it makes sense for smaller groups to use the minimax voting rule if one aims at fairer distribution of travel times, and to use the range voting rule if the goal is instead to avoid delay for the group. For future work, it would be useful to adapt the simulation concept to take real-world conditions and requirements into account. Further possibilities for future work would be considering additional algorithms and models, such as considering combinatorial voting or running simulations based on the extended model, considering the role of financial incentives to encourage ridesharing or platooning and using the LightVoting tool for further research applications

Considering Human Aspects on Strategies for Designing and Managing Distributed Human Computation

A human computation system can be viewed as a distributed system in which the processors are humans, called workers. Such systems harness the cognitive power of a group of workers connected to the Internet to execute relatively simple tasks, whose solutions, once grouped, solve a problem that systems equipped with only machines could not solve satisfactorily. Examples of such systems are Amazon Mechanical Turk and the Zooniverse platform. A human computation application comprises a group of tasks, each of them can be performed by one worker. Tasks might have dependencies among each other. In this study, we propose a theoretical framework to analyze such type of application from a distributed systems point of view. Our framework is established on three dimensions that represent different perspectives in which human computation applications can be approached: quality-of-service requirements, design and management strategies, and human aspects. By using this framework, we review human computation in the perspective of programmers seeking to improve the design of human computation applications and managers seeking to increase the effectiveness of human computation infrastructures in running such applications. In doing so, besides integrating and organizing what has been done in this direction, we also put into perspective the fact that the human aspects of the workers in such systems introduce new challenges in terms of, for example, task assignment, dependency management, and fault prevention and tolerance. We discuss how they are related to distributed systems and other areas of knowledge.Comment: 3 figures, 1 tabl

ISSEC: A socio-technical DSS for information security planning

The traditional notion of information security, rooted in a solidly technical foundation, has within the past decade seen wide criticism within academia - much of which has originated from the social sciences community - as being narrow and technology-centric instead of holistic and organizational in its focus. As information security awareness encompasses an ever-greater scope of organizational dynamics, it becomes necessary for us to develop design methodologies and ultimately, systems, capable of dealing practically with the complex and multifaceted nature of the decision-making of information systems security which is entailed by the emerging notions of a new paradigm for security. To this end, we present an architecture which implements a web-based multi-user decision support system (DSS) driven by an operational security model within a qualitative multi-criteria framework that utilizes AHP as its inference engine. The system is then demonstrated in action, by addressing a multi-criteria security control selection decision

ISSEC: A Socio-technical Decision Support System for Information Security Planning

The traditional notion of information security, rooted in a solidly technical foundation, has within the past decade seen wide criticism within academia - much of which has originated from the social sciences community - as being narrow and technology-centric instead of holistic and organizational in its focus. As information security awareness encompasses an ever-greater scope of organizational dynamics, it becomes necessary for us to develop design methodologies and ultimately, systems, capable of dealing practically with the complex and multifaceted nature of the decision-making of information systems security which is entailed by the emerging notions of a new paradigm for security. To this end, we present an architecture which implements a web-based multi-user decision support system (DSS) driven by an operational security model within a qualitative multi-criteria framework that utilizes AHP as its inference engine. The system is then demonstrated in action, by addressing a multi-criteria security control selection decision

Multi-Relationship Evaluation Design (MRED): An Interactive Test Plan Designer for Advanced and Emerging Technologies

Ground-breaking technologies are developed for use across a broad range of domains such as manufacturing, military, homeland security and automotive industries. These advanced technologies often include intelligent systems or robotic elements. Evaluations are a critical step in the development of these advanced systems. Evaluation events inform the technology developers of specific needs for enhancement, capture end-user feedback, and verify the extent of the technology's functions. Test exercises are an opportunity to showcase the technology's current abilities and limitations and provide data for future test efforts. The objective of this research is to develop the Multi-Relationship Evaluation Design (MRED) methodology, an interactive test plan blueprint generator. MRED collects multiple inputs, processes them interactively with a test designer and outputs evaluation blueprints, specifying key test-plan characteristics. Drawing from the Systems Engineering Paradigm, MRED models a process that had not been modeled before. The MRED model is consistent with the experience of evaluation designers. This method also captures and handles stakeholder preferences so that they can be accommodated in a meaningful way. The result is the MRED methodology that combines practical evaluation design experience with mathematical methods proven in the literature