Collected Papers (Neutrosophics and other topics), Volume XIV

This fourteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 87 papers in Neutrosophics and other fields, such as mathematics, fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, information fusion, robotics, statistics, or extenics, comprising 936 pages, published between 2008-2022 in different scientific journals or currently in press, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 99 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Adesina Abdul Akeem Agboola, Akbar Rezaei, Shariful Alam, Marina Alonso, Fran Andujar, Toshinori Asai, Assia Bakali, Azmat Hussain, Daniela Baran, Bijan Davvaz, Bilal Hadjadji, Carlos Díaz Bohorquez, Robert N. Boyd, M. Caldas, Cenap Özel, Pankaj Chauhan, Victor Christianto, Salvador Coll, Shyamal Dalapati, Irfan Deli, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Fahad Alsharari, Yonfei Feng, Daniela Gîfu, Rafael Rojas Gualdrón, Haipeng Wang, Hemant Kumar Gianey, Noel Batista Hernández, Abdel-Nasser Hussein, Ibrahim M. Hezam, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Muthusamy Karthika, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Kifayat Ullah, Valeri Kroumov, Tapan Kumar Roy, Deepesh Kunwar, Le Thi Nhung, Pedro López, Mai Mohamed, Manh Van Vu, Miguel A. Quiroz-Martínez, Marcel Migdalovici, Kritika Mishra, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohammed Alshumrani, Mohamed Loey, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Ngan Thi Roan, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Rishwanth Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Surapati Pramanik, Quek Shio Gai, Qiang Guo, Rajab Ali Borzooei, Nimitha Rajesh, Jesús Estupiñan Ricardo, Juan Miguel Martínez Rubio, Saeed Mirvakili, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Saeid Jafari, Said Broumi, Ahmed A. Salama, Nirmala Sawan, Gheorghe Săvoiu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seok-Zun Song, Shahzaib Ashraf, Jayant Singh, Rajesh Singh, Son Hoang Le, Tahir Mahmood, Kenta Takaya, Mirela Teodorescu, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Maikel Y. Leyva Vázquez, V. Venkateswara Rao, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Gabriela Vlădeanu, Michael Voskoglou, Yaser Saber, Yong Deng, You He, Youcef Chibani, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Hongbo Wang, Zayen Azzouz Omar

International water and food security development: Performance evaluation and assessment of research needs at multiple scales

Water and food security remain the top development challenges of the decade, and perhaps the century. Since the Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000, billions of people have obtained access to more food, better nutrition, improved water, and basic sanitation facilities worldwide. This progress has been accomplished through the dedication of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, country-level governments, private corporations, and individuals at international, regional, and local scales. Truly tremendous strides have been made in water and food provisioning for humans worldwide. These past two decades have also seen the largest population growth on record, the highest rates of childhood mortality, and climate effects including drought and shifting rainfall that have caused widespread food shortages and death. In 2014, more than one thousand children under the age of 5 died per day of a preventable water related disease, millions of people went without access to adequate nutrition, and billions were without basic sanitation facilities. The current efforts to provide basic human needs including water and food provisioning are not sufficient to end the widespread water related deaths and chronic hunger issues. The research presented herein focuses on understanding previously implemented water and sanitation programs, as well as current research for development efforts relating to water and food security. Overall, this work begins with an analysis of limitations to previously implemented projects, then moves to an analysis of a subset of organizations that are implementing water and food development interventions, and finally concludes with a regional example of how future climate change may alter the management and implementation of water and food programs. Specifically, this work addresses: (1) the quality of improved drinking water sources in western Kenya and southern Vietnam; (2) the status of sanitation facilities in western Kenya and southern Vietnam; (3) stakeholder perceptions and research needs of water and food development programs in the Mekong Basin; (4) how project selection tools can leverage social networks; and (5) how climate change knowledge and perceptions could influence management decisions on a regional scale. These findings suggest that careful attention should be paid to how organizations define and monitor development interventions. Additionally, this work articulates the value of stakeholder acceptability and the opportunity of leveraging social networks to select and prioritize projects that are more likely to succeed in the long term. The evidence derived from the regional study on climate change perceptions, suggests that further research is needed in water and agriculture management strategies for long term resilience. These research needs are identified and described

Risk evaluation in public-private partnership projects in the transport sector in Vietnam.

Many Public-Private Partnership Projects (PPPs) have failed because of risks occurring during operation and earlier studies have demonstrated a need for risk assessment and allocation methods for PPPs. Although researchers have been working in this area for years, the amount of empirical work is limited, especially when applied to developing countries, particularly to Vietnamese PPPs. This research attempts to design a framework using quantitative methods. Besides, qualitative methods are also used as supportive methods. The framework is proposed to identify risks, allocate risks, evaluate the project’s riskiness and return, and optimize concession parameters. The proposed framework is based on two fundamental theories which are Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Risk Adjusted Decoupled Net Present Value (Risk Adjusted DNPV). In AHP, the subjective evaluations are converted into numerical values and analysed to rank each alternative on a numerical scale. A pairwise comparison is then applied to the alternatives regarding specific criteria. Mathematical analysis is then used to create a comprehensive comparison of alternatives. Therefore, in this framework, first, critical risks are identified and evaluated based on their probability of occurrence and the degree of impact. After that, AHP is used to evaluate alternatives’ (projects) riskiness. In addition, AHP is used to allocate critical identified risks with regards to the ability criteria of each party. Risk adjusted DNPV in this framework is used to evaluate returns of the projects and to optimize the concession parameters. Currently, Net Present Value method (NPV) is being widely used to evaluate projects’ returns because of its simplicity to investors. In the NPV method, risks are accounted for by adjusting a “risk-free rate” to form a risk-adjusted discount rate (RADR), and then the RADR is used to devalue cash flow with time. However, it has been argued that time and risk are different variables, and they should be separated in evaluating projects, otherwise evaluation errors can be generated, especially for projects which require long-term investment. PPPs typically demand long-term investments. Consequently, PPPs should be an environment in which the limitations of NPV are exposed. To minimize the limitations of NPV, Risk Adjusted Decoupled Net Present Value method (Risk Adjusted DNVP) has been developed as a new tool to assess projects. In Risk Adjusted DNVP, risks are decoupled from the time value, and they are quantified and treated as a cost to the project. Nevertheless, Risk Adjusted DNVP has not been applied to the area of PPPs. Therefore, this research attempts to use DNPV to evaluate projects’ returns, and to optimize concession parameters. This research also clarifies how the public and private sector can use the proposed framework. Case studies from five Vietnamese PPPs will be shown in the thesis to demonstrate the proposed framework

Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology

Sustainable Developmen