A maritime decision support system to assess risk in the presence of environmental uncertainties: the REP10 experiment

The aim of this work is to report on an activity carried out during the 2010 Recognized Environmental Picture experiment, held in the Ligurian Sea during summer 2010. The activity was the first at-sea test of the recently developed decision support system (DSS) for operation planning, which had previously been tested in an artificial experiment. The DSS assesses the impact of both environmental conditions (meteorological and oceanographic) and non-environmental conditions (such as traffic density maps) on people and assets involved in the operation and helps in deciding a course of action that allows safer operation. More precisely, the environmental variables (such as wind speed, current speed and significant wave height) taken as input by the DSS are the ones forecasted by a super-ensemble model, which fuses the forecasts provided by multiple forecasting centres. The uncertainties associated with the DSS's inputs (generally due to disagreement between forecasts) are propagated through the DSS's output by using the unscented transform. In this way, the system is not only able to provide a traffic light map (run/not run the operation), but also to specify the confidence level associated with each action. This feature was tested on a particular type of operation with underwater gliders: the glider surfacing for data transmission. It is also shown how the availability of a glider path prediction tool provides surfacing options along the predicted path. The applicability to different operations is demonstrated by applying the same system to support diver operations

Decision making under uncertainty using a qualitative TOPSIS method for selecting sustainable energy alternatives

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13762-016-0982-7Multi-criteria decision-making methods support decision makers in all stages of the decision-making process by providing useful data. However, criteria are not always certain as uncertainty is a feature of the real world. MCDM methods under uncertainty and fuzzy systems are accepted as suitable techniques in conflicting problems that cannot be represented by numerical values, in particular in energy analysis and planning. In this paper, a modified TOPSIS method for multi-criteria group decision-making with qualitative linguistic labels is proposed. This method addresses uncertainty considering different levels of precision. Each decision maker’s judgment on the performance of alternatives with respect to each criterion is expressed by qualitative linguistic labels. The new method takes into account linguistic data provided by the decision makers without any previous aggregation. Decision maker judgments are incorporated into the proposed method to generate a complete ranking of alternatives. An application in energy planning is presented as an illustrative case example in which energy policy alternatives are ranked. Seven energy alternatives under nine criteria were evaluated according to the opinion of three environmental and energy experts. The weights of the criteria are determined by fuzzy AHP, and the alternatives are ranked using qualitative TOPSIS. The proposed approach is compared with a modified fuzzy TOPSIS method, showing the advantages of the proposed approach when dealing with linguistic assessments to model uncertainty and imprecision. Although the new approach requires less cognitive effort to decision makers, it yields similar results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Pengaruh Treadmill dengan Inklinasi Terhadap Neovaskularisasi dan Diameter Tendon pada Kejadian Tendinopati Achilles Tikus Wistar

Tendinopati merupakan suatu kondisi patologis pada tendon akibat penggunaan overuse yang ditandai adanya disfungsi aktivitas tendon dengan gejala klinis berupa nyeri, pembengkakan, perubahan struktur jaringan, dan penurunan fungsi. Background: Tendon Achilles merupakan tendon tersering ditemukan pada kasus tendinopati. Mekanisme yang mendasari bersifat multifaktorial dan kompleks. Namun dari berbagai teori dikatakan adanya overuse tendon menyebabkan akumulasi kerusakan pada matriks kolagen, yang ditandai dengan adanya neovaskularisasi serta penurunan jumlah kolagen tendon. Selain itu juga terjadi pelepasan mediator inflamasi yang dapat memengaruhi diameter tendon melalui aktivasi fibroblas. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk membuktikan pengaruh aktivitas fisik menggunakan treadmill dengan inklinasi terhadap timbulnya neovaskularisasi serta peningkatan diameter tendon pada kejadian tendinopati Achilles tikus wistar. Methods: Metode penelitian ini adalah Posttest-Only Control Grup Design. Hewan coba pada penelitian ini berupa tikus putih (Rattus norvegicus) galur Wistar jantan dengan berat badan 200–250 gram berusia 3 bulan. Tikus sebanyak 18 ekor setelah aklimatisasi dibagi ke dalam 2 kelompok yang terdiri atas kelompok kontrol negatif serta kelompok perlakuan yang diinduksi aktivitas fisik menggunakan treadmill dengan inklinasi sebesar 10 derajat dengan kecepatan 25 meter/menit, durasi 15 menit/hari, selama 1 minggu. Kemudian ditingkatkan menjadi 25 meter/menit, durasi 1 jam/hari selama 5 hari dalam 1 minggu, dalam kurun waktu 3 minggu. Results: Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa aktivitas fisik menggunakan treadmill dengan inklinasi dapat menyebabkan timbulnya neovaskularisasi serta peningkatan diameter tendon secara signifikan (p<0,05) pada kelompok perlakuan. Selain itu nilai rata-rata neovaskularisasi serta diameter tendon pada kelompok tikus perlakuan lebih tinggi dibandingkan kelompok tikus wistar normal. Conclusions: Sehingga didapatkan kesimpulan penelitian bahwa aktivitas fisik melalui treadmill dengan inklinasi sebesar 10 derajat dapat memengaruhi timbulnya neovaskularisasi dan peningkatan diameter tendon yang memungkinkan terjadinya Tendinopati Achilles tikus Wistar