The Evaluation in the Urban Projects Planning: A Logical-Deductive Model for the Definition of “Warning Areas” in the Esquilino District in the City of Rome (Italy)

With reference to the current focus on urban redevelopment issue, the evaluation of the projects plays a central role for the definition of effective urban development policies. In the present research, a logical-deductive model for the identification of “warning areas” is proposed. Given an urban area to be renovated, the developed methodological approach starts from the detection of the main existing architectural, historical and environmental emergencies in order to investigate the appreciation of the reference market for the higher or lower proximity to each considered urban pole. Thus, an econometric technique is implemented to examine the influence of each locational factor on selling prices, by assuming the property asset price increase as a proxy of the benefits generated by the urban redevelopment intervention for local communities. Furthermore, the proposed methodology is applied to the Esquilino district in the city of Rome (Italy), for which a relevant urge of urban regeneration is found, to orient the selection phases of the areas that need more attention from public entities

Advances in Evolutionary Algorithms

With the recent trends towards massive data sets and significant computational power, combined with evolutionary algorithmic advances evolutionary computation is becoming much more relevant to practice. Aim of the book is to present recent improvements, innovative ideas and concepts in a part of a huge EA field

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

Genetic Algorithm for Solving the Integrated Production-Distribution-Direct Transportation Planning

This paper proposes a model of integrated production, distribution and transportation planning for 4-echelon supply chain system that consists of a manufacturer using a continuous production process, a distribution center, distributors and retailers. By means of time-dependent demand at all retailers and direct transportation from one echelon to its successive echelons, the purpose of this paper is to determine production/replenishment and transportation policies at manufacturer, distribution center, distributors and retailers in order to minimize annually total system cost. Due to the proposed model is classified as a mixed integer non-linear programming so it is almost impossible to solve the model using the exact optimization methods and a lot of time is needed when the enumeration methods is applied to solve only a small scale problem. In this paper, we apply the genetic algorithm for solving the model. Using integer encoding for constructing the chromosome, the best solution is going to be searched. Compared with enumeration method, the difference of the result is only 0.0594% with the consumption time is only 0.5609% time that enumeration methods need

Risk Management for the Future

A large part of academic literature, business literature as well as practices in real life are resting on the assumption that uncertainty and risk does not exist. We all know that this is not true, yet, a whole variety of methods, tools and practices are not attuned to the fact that the future is uncertain and that risks are all around us. However, despite risk management entering the agenda some decades ago, it has introduced risks on its own as illustrated by the financial crisis. Here is a book that goes beyond risk management as it is today and tries to discuss what needs to be improved further. The book also offers some cases

Hybrid Approach for Website Quality Evaluation: Linear Weightage Model and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process

In rece~t years, many people have devoted their efforts to the issue of quality of website. The ',concept of quality is consisting of many criteria: quality of service ' perspective, a user perspective, a content perspective or indeed ,a usability perspective. The very spec,ial nature of the web applications and website' pose unique software testing challen'g es. Webmasters, Web applications developers, and Website quality assurance managers need tools and methods that can match up to the new needs. The result of this study confirmed that criteria of website quality consist of eleven criteria I (load time, response time, page rank, frequency of update, traffic,;, design optimization, size, nu mber of ite\ns, accessibility error, markup validation, and broken link). Online diagnostic tools 'provided in the internet can be used to measure V)'ebsite quality related with criteria that' was determined in this research. This decreases the economic and noneconomic cost for conducting website evaluation. Online diagn9stics tools allow the website designer or researcher to evaluate many websites and to detect potential problems as well' as actual problems. This research conducts some tests to measure the ' quality website of Asian countries via web diagnostic tools on.line. The researcher proposes a methqdology for determining and evaluating the best e-government, Asian ' airlines, and Malaysian universities sites based on many criteria, of website quality. Applying Hybrid model between LWM and F AHP approach for website evaluation has resulted in significant acceleration of implementation, raised the overall effectiveness ' with respect to the underlying methodology and ultimately enabled more efficient procedure. The result of this study confirmed most of Asian web~ites are neglecting performance and airlines websites have the best quality performancre based on Hybrid Model Evaluation. According to the results of the evaluation process, Airlines sector has ' the highest average. score compare to e-govemment and university. Keywords:-performance, quality, website, Hybrid model.In compliance with the terms of the Copyright Act 1987 and the IP Policy of the university, the copyright of this thesis has been reassigned by the author to the legal entity of the university, Institute of Technology PETRONAS Sdn Bhd. Due acknowledgement shall always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. © Handaru Jati, 2010 Institute of Technology PETRONAS Sdn Bhd All rights reserved. vi

Tesauro de Ciencias de la Documentación

440 p.El tesauro de Ciencias de la Documentación, Docutes, constituye un instrumento normalizador e inductor para el doble proceso de indización-recuperación de los contenidos de la Documentació

A model for partner selection criteria in Energy from Waste projects

Energy from Waste is being deployed in both developed and developing economies as a route to reduce dependency on fossil fuels whilst making positive use of resources which might otherwise be landfilled. Energy from Waste supply chains are complex, with a rich diversity of partners and stakeholders involved. For this purpose, the selection of appropriate criteria to guide supply chain design, and in particular the selection of suppliers, is critical for success. In this study, a three-stage process was conducted to identify, refine and validate an evidence-based model. The evidence based model proposed comprises seven categories of criteria used in the design of these supply chains, namely Economic, Environmental, Location, Operations management, which has a sub-category of Plant operation, Political/Legal and Social. The work reported here supports practitioners and researchers involved in supply chain partner selection to systematise their thinking in relation to the criteria that may impact their study or project