A knowledge-based decision support system for sustainable city livability evaluation

The real estate industry is an important indicator of national economies and is influenced by the environment in which it operates. Several countries were seriously affected by the most recent international financial crisis, including Portugal. Nevertheless, it is still an interesting area to invest in, in spite of the challenges cities may face nowadays that influence their sustainable livability. For this reason, it seems logical to develop and apply methodologies aimed at evaluating sustainable city livability. It is worth noting, however, that there are methodological limitations typically associated with the majority of the current applications (e.g. how to select and weight criteria in the evaluation), which have been hampering the progress. Hence, this dissertation aims to develop a knowledge-based decision support system to evaluate sustainable city livability, in a transparent and informed way. To achieve this goal, it combines cognitive mapping techniques and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The advantages and limitations of this integrative evaluation model are also analyzed and discussed.O mercado imobiliário é um indicador importante das economias mundiais e é influenciado pelo ambiente em que opera. Muitos foram os países seriamente afetados pela mais recente crise financeira internacional, incluindo Portugal. Não obstante, este continua a ser uma área de investimento interessante, ainda que, hoje em dia, as cidades possam enfrentar desafios que influenciam a sua habitabilidade sustentável. Por essa razão, parece lógico o desenvolvimento e a aplicação de metodologias que permitam avaliar a sustentabilidade habitacional de uma área urbana. No entanto, limitações metodológicas comuns à maioria das aplicações (e.g. processo de seleção e ponderação dos critérios de avaliação) têm dificultado os progressos alcançados. Assim, a presente dissertação pretende desenvolver um “termómetro” de habitabilidade sustentável que, de forma informada e transparente, permita apoiar a tomada de decisão no mercado imobiliário urbano, através da combinação do uso integrado de técnicas de mapeamento cognitivo e da metodologia Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). As vantagens e as limitações do uso deste sistema integrativo de avaliação serão também analisadas e discutidas

Mobile Application to support Scientific Conferences - UO ISEP

This dissertation aims to develop a mobile application for Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), to support scientific conferences. With the increase in the use of mobile devices and the growing trend of providing mobile applications for scientific conferences, the need for a mobile application that can enhance the conference experience and provide a convenient and user-friendly way to access information about a conference is becoming more important. This application is designed to be used for live conferences and includes features such as an interactive event schedule, speaker bios, ticket management, and rating of events among others. The attendees can have a seamless conference experience and make the most of the time spent at the conference. The application also includes features for conference organizers such as event registration, attendee management, and real-time analytics. Organizers are able to manage attendees, track attendance, and access analytics on attendee behavior and preferences, and use these features to evaluate the success of the conference, gather insights for future conferences, and improve the attendee’s experience. The development of this application is based on best practices and guidelines for the design and development of mobile applications and user-centered design methodologies. The de sign process is based on user research, interviews, and usability testing, to ensure that the application meets the needs and expectations of the users. The impact of this application on the conference experience is evaluated through user test ing and feedback. The evaluation is focused on measuring the usability, usefulness, and user satisfaction of the application. The results of this evaluation are used to improve the application and ensure that it provides a high-quality user experience. Overall, this thesis aims to contribute to the field of mobile applications for conferences by providing a comprehensive solution that can enhance the attendee experience and improve the overall effectiveness of the conference.Esta dissertação tem como objectivo desenvolver uma aplicação móvel para o ISEP com o intuito de auxiliar nas conferências científicas que o mesmo Instituto organiza. Com o aumento do uso de dispositivos móveis e a crescente tendência de fornecer aos visitantes de conferências aplicações móveis, a necessidade de uma aplicação móvel que permita melhorar a experiência e fornecer uma maneira conveniente e amigável de aceder informações sobre uma conferência organizada pelo ISEP é imperativo. A aplicação desenvolvida no âmbito desta dissertação é projectada para ser usada em conferências ao vivo e incluirá recursos como uma programação interactiva de eventos, biografias dos oradores e materiais de apresentação, além de um directório de participantes e oportunidades de networking. Com esta aplicação, o objectivo é que os participantes tenham uma experiência bastante positiva e que consigam aproveitar ao máximo o tempo gasto na conferência. A aplicação também inclui recursos para os organizadores da conferência, como registo de eventos, gestão de participantes e análises em tempo real. Os organizadores podem gerir os participantes, acompanhar a presença e ter acesso a análises sobre o seu comportamento e preferências, usando essa informação para avaliar o sucesso da conferência, coleccionar e analisar métricas relativas à conferência a fim de melhorar a experiência do participante. O desenvolvimento desta aplicação é baseado nas melhores práticas e directrizes para o desenho e desenvolvimento de aplicações móveis e metodologias de desenho centrada na experiência do utilizador. O processo de desenho é baseado em entrevistas com os organizadores actuais de conferências no ISEP e testes de usabilidade, para garantir que a aplicação atenda às necessidades e expectativas dos utilizadores. O impacto desta aplicação na experiência da conferência é avaliado por meio de testes e feedback dos visitantes e organizadores da conferência. A avaliação é focada em medir a usabilidade, utilidade e satisfação dos utilizadores com a aplicação. Os resultados desta avaliação são utilizados para melhorar a aplicação e garantir que esta proporcione uma experiência de utilizador de alta qualidade. Em geral, esta dissertação quer contribuir para o campo de aplicações móveis para conferências científicas, fornecendo uma solução abrangente que possa melhorar a experiência do participante e melhorar a eficácia geral da conferência. Além disso, a dissertação pretende apresentar uma abordagem de desenho centrado no utilizador e que possa ser utilizada como referência para o desenvolvimento de futuras aplicações móveis em outros domínios

DEsignBench: Exploring and Benchmarking DALL-E 3 for Imagining Visual Design

We introduce DEsignBench, a text-to-image (T2I) generation benchmark tailored for visual design scenarios. Recent T2I models like DALL-E 3 and others, have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in generating photorealistic images that align closely with textual inputs. While the allure of creating visually captivating images is undeniable, our emphasis extends beyond mere aesthetic pleasure. We aim to investigate the potential of using these powerful models in authentic design contexts. In pursuit of this goal, we develop DEsignBench, which incorporates test samples designed to assess T2I models on both "design technical capability" and "design application scenario." Each of these two dimensions is supported by a diverse set of specific design categories. We explore DALL-E 3 together with other leading T2I models on DEsignBench, resulting in a comprehensive visual gallery for side-by-side comparisons. For DEsignBench benchmarking, we perform human evaluations on generated images in DEsignBench gallery, against the criteria of image-text alignment, visual aesthetic, and design creativity. Our evaluation also considers other specialized design capabilities, including text rendering, layout composition, color harmony, 3D design, and medium style. In addition to human evaluations, we introduce the first automatic image generation evaluator powered by GPT-4V. This evaluator provides ratings that align well with human judgments, while being easily replicable and cost-efficient. A high-resolution version is available at https://github.com/design-bench/design-bench.github.io/raw/main/designbench.pdf?download=Comment: Project page at https://design-bench.github.io

A spatial decision support system for multifunctional landscape assessment: a transformative resilience perspective for vulnerable inland areas

The concept of transformative resilience has emerged from the recent literature and represents a way to interpret the potential opportunities for change in vulnerable territories, where a socioeconomic change is required. This article extends the perspective of transformative resilience to an assessment of the landscape multifunctionality of inland areas, exploring the potential of identifying a network of synergies among the different municipalities that is able to trigger a process of territorial resilience. A spatial decision support system (SDSS) for multifunctionality landscape assessment aims to help local actors understand local resources and multifunctional values of the Partenio Regional Park (PRP) and surrounding municipalities, in the South of Italy, stimulating their cooperation in the management of environmental and cultural sites and the codesign of new strategies of enhancement. The elaboration of spatial indicators according to Landscape Services classification and the interaction between the “Analytic Network Process” (ANP) method, spatial weighted overly and geographic information system (GIS) support the identification of a preferable scenario able to activate a transformative resilience strategy in selected vulnerable inland areas, which can be scaled up in other similar contexts

MCDM approach for assessing the sustainability of buildings' facades

Construction industry is known to cause major social, economic and environmental impacts on the society so that promoting sustainable construction practice affects positively and allows generating a balance among these pillars. Besides, to achieve sustainability goals in a building project, the stakeholders' needs and expectations have to be met and taken into consideration. One of the main and largest components of a building, which could highly contribute to the sustainability performance of the whole building is the facade. Previous studies confirmed the predominant role of facades in minimizing environmental effects and decreasing buildings' costs as well as providing comfort for inhabitants. Despite the impact of facades on sustainability, indicators that govern the performance of the pillars are often dismissed or, if considered, these are rather subjectively measured - especially those associated with the social requirement. On the other hand, the vast majority of the existing tools fail at considering stakeholders' satisfaction in the assessment and selection process of optimal facade systems. Within this context, a new comprehensive approach to quantify the sustainability index of facade systems including the most representative economic, environmental and social indicators and integrating the stakeholders’ satisfaction was developed. The approach is based on MIVES (Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment), a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model, which allows minimizing the subjectivity in the decision-making process and relies on the value function concept. This new approach was particularly optimized for residential building facades and successfully validated by analyzing five residential facade systems commonly used in Barcelona. The model is applicable for other countries and cities as well. Furthermore, through assessing the sustainability of two real buildings and validating the goodness of the results, the applicability of this approach was demonstrated. The results proved several capabilities and potentials of the model, these being: (1) quantify, objectively, the sustainability of facade systems from the economic, environmental and social perspectives involving the stakeholders’ preferences and (2), identify strengths and weaknesses of facades that would allow implementing improving measures. The proposed approach was designed to be a decisive support for decision-making in the field of facade management. Findings confirm that the approach is valuable and suitable for use in practice by public and private stakeholders. Future works could be to develop a digital application for building and architectural offices so that these could consider sustainability in the design, assessment and selection processes of facades to make the best decision. Next research steps could also adapt this approach to other types of buildings in order to move towards more sustainable architecture and construction.Es sabido que la industria de la construcción causa importantes impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales en la sociedad, por lo que promover prácticas de construcción sostenibles tiene efectos positivos y permite generar un equilibrio entre estos tres pilares de la sostenibilidad. Además, para lograr los objetivos de sostenibilidad en un proyecto de construcción, las necesidades y expectativas de las partes y profesionales implicados deben cumplirse y tomarse en consideración. Uno de los componentes principales y de más envergadura de un edificio, que podría contribuir en gran medida al comportamiento sostenible de todo el edificio es la fachada. Hay estudios previos que han confirmado el papel predominante de las fachadas a la hora de minimizar los efectos ambientales y disminuir los costos de los edificios, además de proporcionar comodidad a los habitantes. A pesar del impacto de las fachadas en la sostenibilidad, los indicadores que rigen el desempeño de los pilares a menudo se descartan o, si se consideran, se miden de manera bastante subjetiva, especialmente aquellos asociados con los aspectos sociales. Por otro lado, la gran mayoría de las herramientas existentes no tienen en cuenta la satisfacción de las partes interesadas en el proceso de evaluación y selección de sistemas de fachada óptimos. En este contexto, se ha desarrollado un nuevo modelo integral para cuantificar el índice de sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada, incluyendo los indicadores económicos, ambientales y sociales más representativos e integrando la satisfacción de las partes interesadas. El modelo se basa en MIVES, un modelo de toma de decisiones multi criterio (MCDM), que permite minimizar la subjetividad en el proceso de toma de decisiones y se basa en el concepto de función de valor. Este nuevo modelo ha sido especialmente optimizado para fachadas de edificios residenciales y validado con éxito mediante el análisis de cinco sistemas de fachadas residenciales de uso común en Barcelona. El modelo es aplicable a otros países y ciudades también. Además, al evaluar la sostenibilidad de dos edificios reales y validar la bondad de los resultados, se ha probado la aplicabilidad de este modelo. Los resultados han demostrado varias capacidades y potenciales del modelo, como son: (1) cuantificar, objetivamente, la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada desde las perspectivas económicas, ambientales y sociales que involucran las preferencias de las partes interesadas y (2), identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las fachadas, lo que permitiría implementar medidas de mejora. El enfoque propuesto ha sido diseñado para ser un soporte decisivo para la toma de decisiones en el campo de la gestión de fachadas. Los resultados confirman que el enfoque es valioso y adecuado para su uso en la práctica por parte de las partes interesadas públicas y privadas. Los trabajos futuros podrían ser desarrollar una aplicación digital para estudios de arquitectura y edificación para que estos estudios puedan considerar la sostenibilidad en los procesos de diseño, evaluación y selección de fachadas con el objetivo de tomar la mejor decisión. Los próximos pasos de investigación también podrían adaptar este enfoque a otros tipos de edificios para avanzar hacia una arquitectura y construcción más sostenible.Postprint (published version

MCDM approach for assessing the sustainability of buildings' facades

Construction industry is known to cause major social, economic and environmental impacts on the society so that promoting sustainable construction practice affects positively and allows generating a balance among these pillars. Besides, to achieve sustainability goals in a building project, the stakeholders' needs and expectations have to be met and taken into consideration. One of the main and largest components of a building, which could highly contribute to the sustainability performance of the whole building is the facade. Previous studies confirmed the predominant role of facades in minimizing environmental effects and decreasing buildings' costs as well as providing comfort for inhabitants. Despite the impact of facades on sustainability, indicators that govern the performance of the pillars are often dismissed or, if considered, these are rather subjectively measured - especially those associated with the social requirement. On the other hand, the vast majority of the existing tools fail at considering stakeholders' satisfaction in the assessment and selection process of optimal facade systems. Within this context, a new comprehensive approach to quantify the sustainability index of facade systems including the most representative economic, environmental and social indicators and integrating the stakeholders’ satisfaction was developed. The approach is based on MIVES (Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment), a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model, which allows minimizing the subjectivity in the decision-making process and relies on the value function concept. This new approach was particularly optimized for residential building facades and successfully validated by analyzing five residential facade systems commonly used in Barcelona. The model is applicable for other countries and cities as well. Furthermore, through assessing the sustainability of two real buildings and validating the goodness of the results, the applicability of this approach was demonstrated. The results proved several capabilities and potentials of the model, these being: (1) quantify, objectively, the sustainability of facade systems from the economic, environmental and social perspectives involving the stakeholders’ preferences and (2), identify strengths and weaknesses of facades that would allow implementing improving measures. The proposed approach was designed to be a decisive support for decision-making in the field of facade management. Findings confirm that the approach is valuable and suitable for use in practice by public and private stakeholders. Future works could be to develop a digital application for building and architectural offices so that these could consider sustainability in the design, assessment and selection processes of facades to make the best decision. Next research steps could also adapt this approach to other types of buildings in order to move towards more sustainable architecture and construction.Es sabido que la industria de la construcción causa importantes impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales en la sociedad, por lo que promover prácticas de construcción sostenibles tiene efectos positivos y permite generar un equilibrio entre estos tres pilares de la sostenibilidad. Además, para lograr los objetivos de sostenibilidad en un proyecto de construcción, las necesidades y expectativas de las partes y profesionales implicados deben cumplirse y tomarse en consideración. Uno de los componentes principales y de más envergadura de un edificio, que podría contribuir en gran medida al comportamiento sostenible de todo el edificio es la fachada. Hay estudios previos que han confirmado el papel predominante de las fachadas a la hora de minimizar los efectos ambientales y disminuir los costos de los edificios, además de proporcionar comodidad a los habitantes. A pesar del impacto de las fachadas en la sostenibilidad, los indicadores que rigen el desempeño de los pilares a menudo se descartan o, si se consideran, se miden de manera bastante subjetiva, especialmente aquellos asociados con los aspectos sociales. Por otro lado, la gran mayoría de las herramientas existentes no tienen en cuenta la satisfacción de las partes interesadas en el proceso de evaluación y selección de sistemas de fachada óptimos. En este contexto, se ha desarrollado un nuevo modelo integral para cuantificar el índice de sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada, incluyendo los indicadores económicos, ambientales y sociales más representativos e integrando la satisfacción de las partes interesadas. El modelo se basa en MIVES, un modelo de toma de decisiones multi criterio (MCDM), que permite minimizar la subjetividad en el proceso de toma de decisiones y se basa en el concepto de función de valor. Este nuevo modelo ha sido especialmente optimizado para fachadas de edificios residenciales y validado con éxito mediante el análisis de cinco sistemas de fachadas residenciales de uso común en Barcelona. El modelo es aplicable a otros países y ciudades también. Además, al evaluar la sostenibilidad de dos edificios reales y validar la bondad de los resultados, se ha probado la aplicabilidad de este modelo. Los resultados han demostrado varias capacidades y potenciales del modelo, como son: (1) cuantificar, objetivamente, la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de fachada desde las perspectivas económicas, ambientales y sociales que involucran las preferencias de las partes interesadas y (2), identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las fachadas, lo que permitiría implementar medidas de mejora. El enfoque propuesto ha sido diseñado para ser un soporte decisivo para la toma de decisiones en el campo de la gestión de fachadas. Los resultados confirman que el enfoque es valioso y adecuado para su uso en la práctica por parte de las partes interesadas públicas y privadas. Los trabajos futuros podrían ser desarrollar una aplicación digital para estudios de arquitectura y edificación para que estos estudios puedan considerar la sostenibilidad en los procesos de diseño, evaluación y selección de fachadas con el objetivo de tomar la mejor decisión. Los próximos pasos de investigación también podrían adaptar este enfoque a otros tipos de edificios para avanzar hacia una arquitectura y construcción más sostenible

Advances in Methodology and Applications of Decision Support Systems

These Proceedings are composed of a selection of papers of the Workshop on Advances in Methodology and Applications of Decision Support Systems, organized by the System and Decision Sciences (SDS) Program of IIASA and the Japan Institute of Systems Research (JISR). The workshop was held at IIASA on August 20-22, 1990. The Methodology of Decision Analysis (MDA) Project of the SDS Program focuses on a system-analytical approach to decision support and is devoted to developing methodology, software and applications of decision support systems concentrated primarily around interactive systems for data analysis, interpretation and multiobjective decisionmaking, including uncertainty analysis and group decision making situations in both their cooperative and noncooperative aspects. The objectives of the research on decision support systems (DSS) performed in cooperation with the MDA Project are to: compare various approaches to decision support systems; advance theory and methodology of decision support; convert existing theories and methodologies into usable (simple to use, user-friendly and robust) tools that could easily be used in solving real-life problems. A principal characteristic of decision support systems is that they must be tuned to specific decision situations, to complex real-life characteristics of every application. Even if the theory and methodology of decision support is quite advanced, every application might provide impulses for further theoretical and methodological advances. Therefore the principle underlying this project is that theoretical and methodological research should be strongly connected to the implementation and applications of its results to sufficiently complicated, real-life examples. This approach results in obtaining really applicable working tools for decision support. The papers for this Proceedings have been selected according to the above summarized framework of the research activities. Therefore, the papers deal both with theoretical and methodological problems and with real-life applications

Multiple Criteria Decision Support; Proceedings of an International Workshop, Helsinki, Finland, August 7-11, 1989

Multiple Criteria Decision Making has been an important and active research area for some 20 years. In the 1970's, research focused on the theory of multiple objective mathematical programming and on procedures for solving multiple objective mathematical programming problems. During the 1980's, a shift in emphasis towards multiple criteria decision support was observed. Accordingly, much research has focused on the user interface, the behavioral foundations of decision making, and on supporting the entire decision-making process from problem structuring to solution implementation. Because of the shift in research emphasis the authors decided to make "Multiple Criteria Decision Support" the theme for the International Workshop, which was held at Suomen Saeaestoepankkiopisto in Espoo, Finland. The Workshop was organized by the Helsinki School of Economics, and sponsored by the Helsinki School of Economics and IIASA, Austria. This volume provides an up-to-date coverage of the theory and practice of multiple criteria decision support. The authors trust that it will serve the research community as well as the previously published Conference Proceedings based on IIASA Workshops

Sustainable Development of Real Estate

Research, theoretical and practical tasks of sustainable real estate development process are revised in detail in this monograph; particular examples are presented as well. The concept of modern real estate development model and a developer is discussed, peculiarities of the development of built environment and real estate objects are analyzed, as well as assessment methods, models and management of real estate and investments in order to increase the object value. Theoretical and practical analyses, presented in the monograph, prove that intelligent and augmented reality technologies allow business managers to reach higher results in work quality, organize a creative team of developers, which shall present more qualitative products for the society. The edition presents knowledge on economic, legal, technological, technical, organizational, social, cultural, ethical, psychological and environmental, as well as its management aspects, which are important for the development of real estate: publicly admitted sustainable development principles, urban development and aesthetic values, territory planning, participation of society and heritage protection. It is admitted that economical crises are inevitable, and the provided methods shall help to decrease possible loss. References to the most modern world scientific literature sources are presented in the monograph. The monograph is prepared for the researchers, MSc and PhD students of construction economics and real estate development. The book may be useful for other researchers, MSc and PhD students of economics, management and other specialities, as well as business specialist of real estate business. The publication of monograph was funded by European Social Fund according to project No. VP1-2.2-ŠMM-07-K-02-060 Development and Implementation of Joint Master’s Study Programme “Sustainable Development of the Built Environment”