Multi Criteria Decision Analysis Berbasis Fuzzy Set Theory untuk Pengambilan Keputusan

The aim of this study is to develop a framework for decision making process that incorporates selecting the best alternative which is relevant to decision maker. Multi criteria decision anlysis based fuzzy set theory is used in this study to help decision maker to compare and rank decision alternative. This result anbles decision makers to collate the decision alternative and also permits decision-makers the weight of the dimension while modifying decision making process that applied fuzzy set theory to analyse the collected data. Key word: fuzzy set theory, Multi criteria decision analysi

Urban Metabolism and Construction & Demolition Waste. Life Cycle Assessment as a tool to support the territorial regeneration

The present research thesis aims to lay the foundations for the development of a model capable of supporting environmental assessment linked to the regeneration of the territory, through the union of two components: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and wasted landscapes. After a first definition of the field of research investigated, which has as its object urban ecosystems in relation to the metabolic flows that cross them, the instrument of LCA is introduced. LCA is born in the industrial field as a tool for assessing the environmental impacts related to the life cycle of products and services and can also focus on individual phases of this cycle, such as that of Waste Management (WM). This tool is linked to individual products, but in recent times, some research topics have investigated the possibility of extending it to one or more activities that characterize the functioning of the territory, in order to give life to a LCA of territorial nature. A first analysis of the territory is conducted through the concept of ecosystem health, that is translated from the ecological to the urban field in order to qualify the urban health from an economic, environmental and social perspective. Through a combination between Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Geographic Information System (GIS), the territory can be classified according to its level of urban health. Three different perspectives have been considered: “vigour”, “organisation” and “resilience” and according to this framework, a system of indicators has been developed, identifying their territorial distribution. The application provides a subdivision of the Metropolitan Area of Naples (MAN) and the Focus Area (FA) contained in it in different zones with various degrees of resistance to risks and vulnerabilities. The main experimental application of the present research is the use of the LCA tool to evaluate the impacts related to the management of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) flow, integrated by a Life Cycle Costing (LCC) model. CDW crosses both Campania Region and the Focus Area (FA) selected within the Horizon 2020 project called “REPAiR - Resource Management in Peri-Urban Areas: Going Beyond Urban Metabolism”, to which this thesis is linked. Subsequently, it is introduced a second vision of territorial nature that concerns the territorial outcomes of Urban Metabolism (UM) linked to urban and peri-urban life cycles, which, by exhausting the available resources, generate not only waste, but also wasted landscapes (wastescapes). Wasted landscapes can be, as it will be seen in the following chapters, of various kinds and the attention is focused on the portion of territory characterized by the presence of abandoned industrial buildings. By identifying the abandoned buildings of the FA, a second experimental application examines the case study of the former Rhodiatoce factory, for which, through a calculation model, CDW deriving from a building renewal process is assumed. The same LCA model that was used to assess the impacts of the total flows produced in the Region and in the FA, is used to verify the environmental impacts related to this scenario at the construction scale. This approach represents an exemplification that could be repeated in relation to all the other abandoned industrial buildings, in order to assess the environmental and economic impacts linked to their regeneration. Definitely, the idea is to present a new utility attributable to LCA and to lay the foundations for the creation of an evaluation model which allows to make the decision making phase linked to the regeneration of wasted territories more aware

Management Tools for improving Forest Ecosystem Services and promoting Sustainable Forest Management at Local Level

After the Brundtland report and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, the concept of sustainable development was adopted in the forest arena, recognizing the importance of forest to the whole world. As a consequence, forest management was changed going from sustainability, in terms of sustainable use of the timber production, to the multifunctional role of forests and up to the definition of the concept of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). The acknowledgement of the multifunctional role of forest has led to the increase of the importance of forest resources, and forestry has become a very complex field. The numerous benefits that society receives from forests result in the increased interest of stakeholders, which are often in conflict. The increase of pressure on the demand for multiple uses of forest in the same lands has emphasized the need of new tools for forest management. In response to these issues, many efforts have been made by researchers, although there is still much to do and to learn, because of the current global issues concerning climate change, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and energy. SFM plays a crucial role for maintaining healthy, diverse and productive forests ensuring the supply of forest services for human needs. Forest planning represents a very important tool to support SFM, but often the traditional knowledge and management tools are not capable of satisfying all the stakeholders’ needs. The formulation of Forest Management Plans, that are acceptable to all stakeholders, requires the balancing of the different interests and decisions because makers have to meet multiple objectives, or in order to get an acceptable balance if objectives conflict. Hence a large scale management, such as the landscape management is required for a better understanding of the joint production or multiple benefits which forest ecosystems provide to human welfare. In the latest years, new tools of forest planning have been developed, with particular emphasis at the ecosystem approach and on the importance of the scale management. Territorial Forest Plan (TFP) represents a new and helpful tool of forest planning to support SFM, aiming to the improvement of the ecological connectivity and ensuring the production of forest ecosystem services. This work stresses the important role of forest planning at territorial level, with particular emphasis on the Natura 2000 site, for allowing the production of ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation and the water conservation in terms of quality and quantity. Furthermore, it shows three main tools to support SFM with three different case studies. Firstly it demonstrates the role of Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in monitoring sustainable management model of forest resources in the Logone Valley between Chad and Cameroon (Africa). The second describes the Multi Criteria Decision Analysis approach for mapping forest area with the same priority forest function. Finally, the participatory approach through the application of Indicators Analytic Networks has been described.In seguito al rapporto di Brundtland e alla Conferenza delle Nazioni Unite su Ambiente e Sviluppo (UNCED) del 1992, il concetto di sviluppo sostenibile è stato adottato anche in ambito forestale riconoscendo l’importanza delle foreste per il mondo intero. Questo ha determinato un’evoluzione della gestione forestale, passando dalla sostenibilità della produzione legnosa, al ruolo multifunzionale delle foreste, fino a definire il concetto di Gestione Forestale Sostenibile (GFS). La consapevolezza da parte della società, che le foreste svolgono un ruolo multifunzionale, ha favorito una crescita dell’importanza delle risorse forestali, ma al tempo stesso ha aumentato la complessità di questo settore. I numerosi benefici che la società percepisce dalle foreste hanno determinato un aumento dei fruitori di interesse, spesso in conflitto tra loro. L’aumento della pressione sulle foreste per la produzione di più funzioni nella stessa superficie, ha evidenziato l’esigenza di nuovi strumenti di gestione forestale. Per rispondere a queste esigenze, numerosi sforzi in ambito scientifico sono stati fatti, ciononostante, c’è ancora molto da fare e da imparare, a causa delle attuali questioni globali riguardanti i cambiamenti climatici, la perdita di biodiversità, la scarsità di acqua e di energia. Il ruolo della GFS è cruciale per conservare la vitalità, la biodiversità e la produttività delle foreste, garantendo la produzione dei servizi forestali per i fabbisogni umani. La pianificazione forestale è uno strumento molto importante a supporto della GFS, ma spesso le conoscenze e i tradizionali strumenti di gestione non sono sufficienti per soddisfare le numerose aspettative dei fruitori di interesse. La redazione di Piani di Gestione Forestale, affinché sia accettabile da tutti i fruitori di interesse, richiede un’attenta valutazione dei diversi benefici e delle scelte da parte dei decisori, al fine di soddisfare più obiettivi, oppure per raggiungere un compromesso, nel caso in cui gli obiettivi sono in conflitto. Per questo è necessaria una gestione a scala di livello più ampia, per esempio a scala di paesaggio, in modo tale da favorire una migliore conoscenza del valore complessivo e dei numerosi benefici che le foreste forniscono per il benessere umano. Negli ultimi anni, nuovi strumenti di pianificazione forestale sono stati sviluppati, con particolare attenzione all’approccio ecosistemico e all’importanza della scala di gestione. Il Piano Forestale di Indirizzo Territoriale (PFIT) rappresenta un utile e innovativo strumento di pianificazione forestale a supporto della GFS, con l’obietto di migliorare la connettività ecologica assicurando la produzione di servizi ecosistemici delle foreste. Il presente lavoro evidenzia l’importante ruolo della pianificazione forestale a scala territoriale, con particolare riferimento ai siti di Natura 2000, per promuovere la fornitura di servizi ecosistemici, quali la conservazione di biodiversità e la tutela della qualità e quantità dell’acqua. Inoltre, presenta tre principali strumenti di GFS, in tre differenti casi di studio. Il primo illustra il ruolo dei Sistemi Informativi Territoriali (SIT) per il monitoraggio di modelli di gestione sostenibile delle risorse forestali nella Valle del Logone, a confine tra Ciad e Camerun (Africa). Il secondo descrive l’applicazione dell’analisi multicriterio per identificare aree forestali con la stessa funzione prioritaria. L’ultimo caso studio tratta del processo partecipativo utilizzando gli indicatori di gestione forestale, attraverso la Network Analysis.Dottorato di ricerca in Difesa e qualità delle produzioni agro-alimentari e forestali (XXIV ciclo

On the use of a multicriteria hierarchical discrimination approach for country risk assessment

Summarization: Country risk is an issue with multidimensional implications in economic and social development at the national, regional and global levels. The assessment of country risk is often realized as a classification problem, involving the assignment of the countries into predefined groups according to their economic prospects. Within this framework, this study employs the MHDIS multi-criteria decision aid method (Multi-group Hierarchical DIScrimination) for developing country risk assessment models. The data used in the analysis involve a set of 161 countries obtained from the World Bank. An extensive comparison is also performed with other well-known parametric and non-parametric classification methods.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Journal of Multi-criteria Decision Analysi

Multi-criteria decision aid in financial decision making: Methodologies and literature review

Summarization: Over the past decades the complexity of financial decisions has increased rapidly, thus highlighting the importance of developing and implementing sophisticated and efficient quantitative analysis techniques for supporting and aiding financial decision making. Multi-criteria decision aid (MCDA), an advanced field of operations research, provides financial decision makers (DMs) and analysts a wide range of methodologies, which are well suited to the complexity of financial decision problems. The aim of this paper is to provide an in-depth presentation of the contributions of MCDA in the field of finance, focusing on the methods used and their real-world applications.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Journal of Multi-criteria Decision Analysi

Skills evaluator: a multicriteria decision support system for the evaluation of qualifications and skills in information and communication technologies

Summarization: Employees need to acquire new qualifications throughout their lives in order to deal with the multiple changes in the labour market. This knowledge and competences (formally or non-formally acquired) must be identified and evaluated. For that reason, an integrated approach to the evaluation of Information and Communication Technology knowledge and skills is proposed. The multicriteria method that has been developed refers to professionals who wish to be accredited in a particular specialization through the evaluation of their professional experience, studies and vocational training. The aim of this paper is to present the multicriteria decision support system, Skills Evaluator, which brings into effect the aforementioned methodΠαρουσιάστηκε στο: Journal of Multi‐Criteria Decision Analysi

Development of a robust multicriteria classification model for monitoring the postoperative behaviour of heart patients

Summarization: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia occurring in 2% of the general population, while the assuming projected incidence in 2050 will rise to 4.3%. This paper presents a multicriteria methodology for the development of a model for monitoring the post-operative behaviour of patients who have received treatment for AF. The model classifies the patients in seven categories according to their relapse risk, on the basis of seven criteria related to the AF type and pathology conditions, the treatment received by the patients and their medical history. The analysis is based on an extension of the UTilités Additives DIScriminantes (UTADIS) method, through the introduction of a two-stage model development procedure that minimizes the number and the magnitude of the misclassifications. The analysis is based on a sample of 116 patients who had pulmonary veins isolation in a Greek public hospital. The classification accuracy of the best fitted models scores between 71% and 84%.Presented on: Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysi

A multicriteria decision framework for measuring banks' soundness around the world

Summarization: In this paper, we use a sample of 894 banks from 79 countries to develop a multicriteria decision aid model, for the classification of banks into three groups on the basis of their soundness. The model is developed with the UTilités Additives DIScriminantes (UTADIS) method, through a 10-fold cross-validation procedure using six financial and four non-financial variables. The ratings of Fitch form the basis for assigning banks into the three groups. The results indicate that the asset quality (as measured by loan loss provisions), capitalization, and the market where banks operate are the most important criteria (in terms of weights) in classifying the banks. Profitability and efficiency in expenses management are also important attributes, whereas size and listing in a stock exchange are the least important ones. UTADIS achieves higher classification accuracies than discriminant analysis and ordinary logistic regression which are used for benchmarking purposes.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Journal of Multi- Criteria Decision Analysi