Creative trans-border cooperation in the field of operations research and sustainable development in civil engineering

The paper presents an overview of the history and achievements of trans-border cooperation in the Lithuania-Germany-Poland triangle in planning instruments in Construction Management, decision-making theory, application of Operational Research, and Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods in Civil Engineering and sustainable development. The cooperation and results of the Colloquiums with 35 years of tradition, their multidimensional nature is underlined. The research instruments, methods, studied phenomena are reviewed and characteristic applications in engineering and economics are presented. The knowledge and combined efforts of three academic centers have created a synergy which set in motion many original methods and spectacular implementations. The Colloquium calendar and the evolution of organizational forms are presented along with the inclusion of the informal EURO Working Group on Operations Research in Sustainable Development and Civil Engineering

Investigating Potential Interventions on disruptive impacts of Industry 4.0 technologies in Circular Supply chains: Evidence from SMEs of an Emerging Economy

As a transversal theme, the intertwining of digitalization and sustainability has crossed all Supply Chains (SCs) levels dealing with widespread environmental and societal concerns. This paper investigates the potential interventions and disruptive impacts that Industry 4.0 technologies may have on pharmaceutical Circular SCs (CSCs). To accomplish this, a novel method involving a literature review and Pythagorean fuzzy-Delphi has initially been employed to identify and screen categorized lists of Industry 4.0 Disruptive Technologies (IDTs) and their impacts on pharmaceutical CSC. Subsequently, the weight of finalized impacts and the performance score of finalized IDTs have simultaneously been measured via a novel version of Pythagorean fuzzy SECA (Simultaneously Evaluation of Criteria and Alternatives). Then, the priority of each intervention for disruptive impacts of Industry 4.0 has been determined via the Hanlon method. This is one of the first papers to provide in-depth insights into advancing the study of the disruptive action of Industry 4.0 technologies cross-fertilizing CE throughout pharmaceutical SCs in the emerging economy of Iran. The results indicate that digital technologies such as Big Data Analytics, Global Positioning Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning, and Digital Platforms are quite available in the Irans' pharmaceutical industry. These technologies, along with four available interventions, e.g., environmental regulations, subsidy, fine, and reward, would facilitate moving towards a lean, agile, resilient, and sustainable supply chain through the efficient utilization of resources, optimized waste management, and substituting the human workforce by machines

A Comprehensive Review of the Novel Weighting Methods for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

In the realm of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, the selection of a weighting method holds a critical role. Researchers from diverse fields have consistently employed MCDM techniques, utilizing both traditional and novel methods to enhance the discipline. Acknowledging the significance of staying abreast of such methodological developments, this study endeavors to contribute to the field through a comprehensive review of several novel weighting-based methods: CILOS, IDOCRIW, FUCOM, LBWA, SAPEVO-M, and MEREC. Each method is scrutinized in terms of its characteristics and steps while also drawing upon publications extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Through bibliometric and content analyses, this study delves into the trend, research components (sources, authors, countries, and affiliations), application areas, fuzzy implementations, hybrid studies (use of other weighting and/or ranking methods), and application tools for these methods. The findings of this review offer an insightful portrayal of the applications of each novel weighting method, thereby contributing valuable knowledge for researchers and practitioners within the field of MCDM.WOS:0009972313000012-s2.0-85160203389Emerging Sources Citation IndexarticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılan - EVETHaziran2023YÖK - 2022-2

Life Cycle Assessment of Present and Future Marine Fuels

Interest in new fuels for marine propulsion is growing, mainly as a result of stricter environmental regulations but also due to increased attention to air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and the uncertainty of future oil supply. Several different fuels and exhaust abatement technologies are proposed for marine transportation, all of which have different advantages and disadvantages in relation to the environment and human health. It is interesting to assess the upstream environmental impact of a fuel change in order to avoid problem shifting from one phase in the life cycle to another. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a common tool for environmental assessments of products and services and it addresses the potential environmental impact of a product or service from a cradle-to-grave perspective. LCA is already well established for evaluating alternative fuels for road transportation. It is therefore considered an appropriate tool for assessing the environmental performance of marine fuels. Here, LCA has been used in two different studies for assessing the environmental impact of marine fuels. In the first study, Paper I, the life cycle environmental impact of changing fuel and/or installing abatement techniques in order to comply with upcoming environmental regulations is explored. The alternatives investigated were heavy fuel oil with and without scrubber, marine gas oil with and without selective catalytic reduction, liquefied natural gas and synthetic diesel with and without selective catalytic reduction. This study thus only involved fossil fuels and indicated that the global warming potential of the investigated fuels are of the same order of magnitude. The best overall environmental performance was reached, not surprisingly, for the fuels that fulfil the most stringent upcoming environmental regulations: liquefied natural gas and marine gas oil with SCR. Synthetic diesel was ruled out as being too energy intensive. In the second study, Paper II, two routes, a diesel route and a gas route, towards the use of renewable fuels in the shipping industry were investigated. The study started from the traditional fuel used today: heavy fuel oil. For 2015, two possible paths were assessed: marine gas oil and liquefied natural gas. For 2020, these fuels were blended with a small proportion of a first-generation biofuel of the same type, and for 2025 they were fully replaced with a second-generation biofuel. This study indicated that the gas route has better overall environmental performance than the diesel route. The study also illustrated that biofuels are one possible measure to decrease the global warming impact from shipping but that it can be at the expense of greater environmental impact from other impact categories

International entrepreneurial startups' location under uncertainty through a heterogeneous multi-layer decision-making approach:Evidence and application of an emerging economy

Purpose: Science and technology parks (STPs) have a limited capacity, which can create challenging conditions for applicants. This makes the location selection a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem to find and apply for the most appropriate STP with the highest accordance with the startup's requirements. This research aims to select the most appropriate STP to locate an international entrepreneurial pharmaceutical startup under uncertainty. Since drugs are generally produced domestically in developing countries such as Iran, the access of pharmaceutical startups to the resources provided by STPs can lead to overcoming competitors and improving the country's health system. Design/methodology/approach: In this research, the factors or attributes effective on startup location were extracted through a two-round Delphi method, which was performed among 15 experts within three groups. Subsequently, the determining factors were used to select the location of a pharmaceutical startup among possible STPs. In this regard, decision-makers were allowed to use different types of numbers to transfer their opinion. Afterward, the heterogeneous weighted aggregated sum product assessment (HWASPAS) method was applied to calculate the score of each alternative and rank them to place the studied startup successfully. Findings: The results indicated that Tehran STP stands in the first place; however, if the decision was made based on single criterion like cost, some other STPs could be preferable, and many managers would lose this choice. Furthermore, the results of the proposed method were close to other popular heterogeneous MCDM approaches. Originality/value: A heterogeneous WASPAS is developed in this article for the first time to enable international entrepreneurs to imply their opinion with various values and linguistic variables to reduce the emphasis on accurate data in an uncertain environment

Hubs and clusters approach to unlock the development of carbon capture and storage – Case study in Spain

Many countries have assigned an indispensable role for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in their national climate change mitigation pathways. However, CCS deployment has stalled in most countries with only limited commercial projects realised mainly in hydrocarbon-rich countries for enhanced oil recovery. If the Paris Agreement is to be met, then this progress must be replicated widely, including hydrocarbon-limited countries. In this study, we present a novel source-to-sink assessment methodology based on a hubs and clusters approach to identify favourable regions for CCS deployment and attract renewed public and political interest in viable deployment pathways. Here, we apply this methodology to Spain, where fifteen emission hubs from both the power and the hard-to-abate industrial sectors are identified as potential CO2 sources. A priority storage structure and two reserves for each hub are selected based on screening and ranking processes using a multi-criteria decision-making method. The priority source-to-sink clusters are identified indicating four potential development regions, with the North-Western and North-Eastern Spain recognised as priority regions due to resilience provided by different types of CO2 sources and geological structures. Up to 68.7 Mt CO2 per year, comprising around 21% of Spanish emissions can be connected to clusters linked to feasible storage. CCS, especially in the hard-to-abate sector, and in combination with other low-carbon energies (e.g., blue hydrogen and bioenergy), remains a significant and unavoidable contributor to the Paris Agreement's mid-century net-zero target. This study shows that the hubs and clusters approach can facilitate CCS deployment in Spain and other hydrocarbon-limited countries