Decision map for spatial decision making in urban planning

In this paper, we introduce the concept of decision map and illustrate the way this new concept can be used effectively to support participation in spatial decision making and in urban planning. First, we start by introducing our spatial decision process which is composed of five, non-necessary sequential, phases: problem identification and formulation, analysis, negotiation, concertation, and evaluation and choice. Negotiation and concertation are two main phases in spatial decision making but most available frameworks do not provide tools to support them effectively. The solution proposed here is based on the concept of decision map which is defined as an advanced version of conventional geographic maps which is enriched with preferential information and especially designed to clarify decision making. It looks like a set of homogenous spatial units; each one is characterised with a global, often ordinal, evaluation that represents an aggregation of several partial evaluations relative to different criteria. The decision map is also enriched with different spatial data exploration tools. The procedure of the construction of a decision map contains four main steps: definition of the problem (i.e. generation of criteria maps), generation of an intermediate map, inference of preferential parameters, and generation of a final decision map. The concept of decision map as defined here is a generic tool that may be applied in different domains. This paper focuses on the role of the decision map in supporting participation in spatial decision making and urban planning. Indeed, the decision map is an efficient communication tool in the sense that it permits to the different groups implied in the spatial decision process to ‘think visually’ and to communicate better between each other.ou

Observing the observers – uncovering the role of values in research assessments of organic food systems

Assessing the overall effects of organic food systems is important, but also a challenge because organic food systems cannot be fully assessed from one single research perspective. The aim of the article is to uncover the role of values in assessments of organic food systems as a basis for discussing the implications of combining multiple perspectives in overall sustainability assessments of the food system. We explore how values are embedded in five research perspectives assessing organic food systems, 1) Food Science, 2) Discourse Analysis, 3) Phenomenology, 4) Neoclassical Welfare Economics and 5) Actor-Network Theory. The article shows that value has various meanings in different scientific perspectives, and that a strategy for including and balancing different forms of knowledge in overall assessments of the effects of food systems is needed. Based on the analysis, we propose five ecommendations: 1) Elucidate values as a necessary foundation for research assessment across perspectives. 2 The choice of perspective is decisive and should be openly discussed 3) Formulate common goals which can be translated into the different perspectives and 4) Consider assessment of food system sustainability a learning process and design it as such

Incorporating stakeholders’ knowledge in group decision-making

International audienc

Modelling multicriteria value interactions with Reasoning Maps

Idiographic causal maps are extensively employed in Operational Research to support problem structuring and complex decision making processes. They model means-end or causal discourses as a network of concepts connected by links denoting influence, thus enabling the representation of chains of arguments made by decision-makers. There have been proposals to employ such structures to support the structuring of multicriteria evaluation models, within an additive value measurement framework. However, a drawback of this multi-methodological modelling is the loss of richness of interactions along the means-end chains when evaluating options. This has led to the development of methods that make use of the structure of the map itself to evaluate options, such as the Reasoning Maps method, which employs ordinal scales and ordinal operators for such evaluation. However, despite their potential, Reasoning Maps cannot model explicitly value interactions nor perform a quantitative ranking of options, limiting their applicability and usefulness. In this article we propose extending the Reasoning Maps approach through a multilinear evaluation model structure, built with the MACBETH multicriteria method. The model explicitly captures the value interactions between concepts along the map and employs the MACBETH protocol of questioning to assess the strength of influence for each means-end link. The feasibility of the proposed approach to evaluate options and to deal with multicriteria interactions is tested in a real-world application to support the construction of a population health index

Selection of Project Managers: An Overview

Background: The project manager choice is one of the most important, complicated and multi-layered decisions in project management. Although the competence of a project manager is the subject of numerous studies, mostly in the field of economic sciences, there are still relatively few studies dealing with project manager selection. Objectives: The aim of this paper is to provide a useful overview of research on approaches, models, techniques, and competencies during the process of selecting project managers, in order to improve understanding an effective process of selecting project managers from academic researchers and practitioners’ point of view. Methods/Approach: This article is a scientific review of previously published studies that are linked to competencies of a project manager and the process of project manager selection according to the traditional and the modern approach. Results: The process of selecting project managers is not sufficiently investigated in Croatia, while most of the research is focused to traditional approach. Conclusions: In this work, we propose a combination of the traditional and the modern approach to the selection of project managers, which would be based on the multicriteria decision making

Eliciting stakeholder preferences on the potential benefit of diversified small-scale fishery activities

This paper examines stakeholders' preferences concerning diversification of small scale fishery activities, which has become a necessity for many small-scale fishermen in order to provide additional sources of income, as their income is often inadequate. It's looks at participatory modelling as a potential tool to enhance mutual understanding and legitimacy. Fisheries stakeholders and those with an indirect interest in diversification of their activities were invited to participate in the process of framing the management problem and to give input and evaluate the scientific models that are used to provide suggestions to decision makers. We followed a number of different strategies to investigate the role of participatory knowledge development. The study empirically integrates the traditional models of multicriteria decision aid approach with the deliberative mapping perspective. We conclude that participatory modelling has the potential to facilitate and structure the deliberative process within a dialogue between scientists and stakeholders about uncertainties and the quality of the knowledge base. It can also contribute to collective learning, increase legitimacy, and advance scientific understanding

EmC-ICDSST 2019: 5th International Conference on Decision Support System Technology - ICDSST 2019 & EURO Mini Conference 2019 on "Decision Support Systems: Main Developments & Future Trends"

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Multicriteria Fuzzy Analysis for a GIS-Based Management of Earthquake Scenarios

Objective of this article is the formulation andthe implementation of a decision-making model for theoptimal management of emergencies. It is based on theaccurate definition of possible scenarios resulting fromprediction and prevention strategies and explicitly takesinto account the subjectivity of the judgments of prefer-ence. To this end, a multicriteria decision model, basedon fuzzy logic, has been implemented in a user-friendlygeographical information system (GIS) platform so asto allow for the automation of choice processes betweenseveral alternatives for the spatial location of the investi-gated scenarios. In particular, we have analyzed the po-tentialities of the proposed approach in terms of seismicrisk reduction, simplifying the decision process leadingto the actions to be taken from directors and managers ofcoordination services. Due to the large number of vari-ables involved in the decision process, it has been pro-posed a particularly flexible and streamlined method inwhich the damage scenarios, based on the vulnerabilityof the territory, have represented the input data to de-rive a vector of weights to be assigned to different de-cision alternatives. As an application of the proposedapproach, the seismic damage scenario of a region of400 km2, hit by the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila (Italy),has been analyzed

The legacy of 50 years of fuzzy sets: A discussion

International audienceThis note provides a brief overview of the main ideas and notions underlying fifty years of research in fuzzy set and possibility theory, two important settings introduced by L.A. Zadeh for representing sets with unsharp boundaries and uncertainty induced by granules of information expressed with words. The discussion is organized on the basis of three potential understanding of the grades of membership to a fuzzy set, depending on what the fuzzy set intends to represent: a group of elements with borderline members, a plausibility distribution, or a preference profile. It also questions the motivations for some existing generalized fuzzy sets. This note clearly reflects the shared personal views of its authors