Large Number Of Criteria Research Articles

Unifying several separability conditions using the covariance matrix criterion

We present a framework for deciding whether a quantum state is separable or entangled using covariance matrices of locally measurable observables. This leads to the covariance matrix criterion as a general separability criterion. We demonstrate that this criterion allows us to detect many states where the familiar criterion of the positivity of the partial transpose fails. It turns out that a large number of criteria that have been proposed to complement the positive partial transpose criterion---the computable cross norm or realignment criterion, the criterion based on local uncertainty relations, criteria derived from extensions of the realignment map, and others---are in fact a corollary of the covariance matrix criterion.

Multi-criteria decision making for the evaluation of the performance of bearing materials

Some of the most important engineering materials are those used for bearings. However, the properties required of these materials are many, and are often conflicting in nature. Generally, it is impossible to identify any one material which will perfectly respond to all such requirements in a given environment. Hence, the question of optimisation. The present article is based on one such optimisation technique known as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It considers a number of alternative materials as well as design criteria (respectively 4 and 5 in the present article) and arrives at the most suitable material. The algorithm calculates the Priority Vector (PV) values by eigenvector method of pair-wise comparison. These PV values are calculated through an iterative process, and are accepted if the concerned matrices yield Consistency Ratios (CR) below a specific limit. Finally, Composite Priority (CP) values are calculated, and the alternatives are ranked according to their CP values. The algorithm is coded in Fortran language. The program is general and can be used to handle smaller or larger number of criteria and alternatives as well.

Environmental Assessment Framework for Policy Applications: Life Cycle Assessment, External Costs and Multi-criteria Analysis

The paper presents a framework for the analysis of external costs of environmental burdens, namely an impact pathway analysis, often coupled with the inventory stage of life cycle assessment (LCA). The ground rule is: quantify as much as possible in terms of burdens (pollutant emissions, etc.), impacts, and their monetary equivalent, then use multi-criteria analysis (MCA) for any remaining impacts that are considered to be too uncertain or defy quantification through to monetization. Although MCA could be used directly on estimates of burdens or impacts, monetary valuation provides a mechanism for consistent weighting of impacts categories based on assessment of public preference. Further advantages of extending LCA through detailed impact assessment combined with monetary valuation are that it greatly simplifies MCA by combining a large number of different environmental impact categories, thereby avoiding an unmanageably large number of criteria, and also facilitates cost benefit analysis (CBA). The risks are noted of inappropriate use of the tools or interpretation/use of the results, and recommendations are made for improved practice. These points are illustrated with examples. The key messages are: (1) that policies should be targeted correctly to give a clear signal which source of a burden should be reduced by how much; (2) that analysts should take into account the needs of policy makers and the link between the analysis and possible policy applications; and (3) that current LCA practice gives limited guidance in both areas, largely through a lack of consideration of the relative and absolute importance of different types of impact. However, this is precisely the strength of external costs analysis, particularly when used with MCA.

Ecosystem services from tropical forestry projects – The choice of international market actors

Ecosystem services from tropical forestry draw increasing attention from the public and private sectors. However, the decision making of market actors involved in transactions concerning ecosystem services is not well known and described. The goal of this paper is to describe preferences of market actors for tropical forestry projects that provide ecosystem services. Preferences were elicited within an explorative questionnaire survey directed to market actors from Europe, Japan, Latin America, South East Asia and the USA. Participants represent 71 companies and organisations including banks, certifiers, consultants, governmental organizations, industrial companies and associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and re-insurance companies. Preferences were elicited based on a set of 12 criteria that were established in a previous survey with the same market actor groups. In one approach for preference elicitation, we applied discriminant analysis based on the assessments of criteria performances and attractiveness of two hypothetical forestry projects. According to their criteria performance, we labelled the projects “business opportunity” and “sustainability”. The other approach was to let the participants weight the criteria directly without a given project context. The project “business opportunity” was significantly more attractive to participants than the project “sustainability”. This contradicted strongly the results of the direct weighting procedure, where criteria associated with the project “sustainability” received higher weights. We discuss this matter with regard to the phenomenon of framing effects. The discriminant model proved to be a useful method that allows the integration of a relatively large number of criteria that are necessary to cope with the complexity of decision problems related to tropical forestry. We critically compare our approach to choice experiments. In addition, we discuss implications of differences found between participants from tropical and non-tropical countries for the planning of market transactions for ecosystem services.

Zorgvuldigheidseisen in de zorgverlening rond het levenseinde

Medical decisions at the end of life include a broad range of decisions and actions, ranging from normal medical care (such as starting a treatment, palliative care etc.) to special medical care (euthanasia or ending a patient’s life without request).These decisions are regulated both by law and professional guidelines. Together these norms and guidelines make up the physician’s professional standard. In the context of this standard a large number of criteria for good medical practice have been developed. These criteria are an important means to improve the quality and transparency of medical decision at the end of life.

Structure of Southern Ocean fronts at 140°E

The major fronts between Tasmania and Antarctica are described on the basis of repeat hydrographic and expendable bathythermograph (XBT) sections and satellite altimetry. The high spatial and temporal resolution allows the location, structure and variability of the fronts to be investigated in detail. A large number of criteria are examined in an effort to identify reliable indicators of the fronts (e.g. lateral gradients along isobars and isopycnals, transport maxima, and the latitude where a property isoline crosses a particular isobar). The location of the Subtropical Front (STF) varies by less than 1° from its mean latitude of 45.2°S between the Tasmanian continental slope and the South Tasman Rise. The high resolution sections resolve multiple branches or filaments of each of the main fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) south of Australia: the Subantarctic Front (SAF) has two cores at mean latitudes of 50.5° and 52°S, the Polar Front (PF) has two branches which are found between 53° and 54°S and between 59° and 60°S, and the southern ACC front crosses the section near 62°S and 64°S. The southern boundary of the ACC sometimes merges with the southern ACC front (SACCF). The Antarctic Slope Front is found over the upper continental slope on those sections, which extend sufficiently close to Antarctica. Each of the frontal filaments identified on the repeat sections corresponds to a narrow range of sea surface height (SSH) values. These SSH streamlines are also found to correspond to large lateral gradients of SSH (i.e. fronts) east and west of the repeat section. Maps of sea surface height are then used to determine the path and variability of the fronts. The maps confirm the multi-filament structure of the fronts and show that streamlines merge and split along the path of the fronts. Each of the ACC fronts extends throughout the water column; as a result, the path of the fronts and the width of their meander envelopes are strongly influenced by bathymetry. Meridional displacements of the fronts are correlated with variations in SST, suggesting shifts of the fronts contribute to SST variability observed on interannual time scales.

A-posteriori analysis of the relevance of a multicriteria decision-aid method for best management practice choice in urban storm drainage

The problem of the choice of best storm drainage management scenarios led to the development of a multicriteria decision-aid method based on twenty seven criteria defined in partnership with a group of experts. A validation study of the methodology showed its relevance on real cases but also that the large number of criteria hindered its use. An a-posteriori analysis of the results obtained by our methodology from three real projects was carried out in order to try to extract non-discriminating criteria, to identify those that could be removed, combined or re-formulated, and to try to understand the reasons why they failed to prove relevant. The work is based on two reduction methods: one empirical and one based on entropy calculations.

The conceptual design of commercial buildings using a genetic algorithm

A decision support system for the conceptual design of commercial office type buildings is described. The system, called BGRID employs a genetic algorithm (GA) to search for viable design options and is intended to be used not just by structural engineers but also by architects, building services engineers and even clients. BGRID incorporates a high level of understanding about structural design and its constraints. The design process is currently focussed on the floor plan and determining the layout of columns based on a large number of criteria, including lighting requirements, ventilation strategies, limitations introduced by the available sizes of typical building materials and the available structural systems. The system uses the GA more as a search engine rather than as an optimisation tool. The development of the BGRID has involved extensive collaboration with architects, structural and building services engineers.

On the use of personality measures in personnel selection.

P. GREGORY IRVINGThe University of Western OntarioAbstractAlthough the use of personality as a predictor in personnel has not met with substantial success in the past, recent evidence has suggested that personality measures are related to performance criteria which are unrelated to cognitive ability when the traits measured are conceptually related to these criteria. It seems that personality measures may predict job performance dimensions which cannot be predicted by cognitive ability measures. The use of personality measures in personnel may be warranted when a careful job analysis is undertaken to determine which performance dimensions may be related to personality traits. As early as 1923, Freyd (cited in Guion, 1983) recognized that certain steps must be undertaken to ensure that the personnel procedures used by organizations are valid. These steps included conducting a job analysis to determine the characteristics which led to success or failure on the job, designating a single - measure criterion of success, developing an exhaustive list of abilities required for success, finding or devising a measure of these abilities, and statistically comparing the test scores with the criterion scores. Freyd's steps continue to represent sound personnel practises in major Industrial/Organizational psychology textbooks (e.g., Cascio, 1987; Landy, 1989).Despite the fact that Freyd outlined these steps some 70 years ago, researchers investigating the relationship between personality and job performance have tended to ignore his advice. Early attempts to use personality traits to predict various job criteria have generally used a shotgun approach in which a large number of scales were correlated with a large number of criteria. Such an approach has been used to predict accident rates of truck drivers (Parker, 1953) and job satisfaction of farmers (Brayfield & Marsh, 1957). The predictor in both studies was the clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The problem with this empirical approach to predicting job - related criteria is that one may expect at least some relationships to be significant by chance alone and attempts at cross - validation would likely result in substantial shrinkage in the validity coefficients. The assessment of personality has been a controversial topic in personnel selection. Over the past several decades, a number of literature reviews have been conducted resulting in conflicting viewpoints regarding the predictability of job performance based on personality traits (Ghiselli & Barthol, 1953; Guion & Gottier, 1965; Schmitt, Gooding, Noe & Kirsch, 1984; Tett, Jackson & Rothstein, 1991). Although Guion and Gottier (1965) stated that there is no generalizable evidence that personality measures can be recommended as good or practical tools for employee selection (p. 159), they observed the importance of predicting job criteria which are unrelated to cognitive ability. Without exception, these reviews have cautioned against the shotgun approach to prediction which has plagued previous attempts to validate personality measures in personnel selection. Hollenbeck and Whitener (1988) have suggested that one of the reasons for the poor predictive ability of personality variables in previous studies is that many of the validation studies lacked statistical power (see Schmidt, Hunter, & Urry, 1976, for a discussion of the lack of power in validation studies). As evidence, they point to the fact that in Guion and Gottier's (1965) review, 62 of 100 validation studies had sample sizes of less than 84.Personality assessments have long been used as a part of the process for several professions including police officers (Burbeck & Furnham, 1985; Inwald & Shusman, 1984), flight attendants (Ferris, Bergin & Gilmore, 1986), and firefighters (Johnson, 1983). Much of the recent research involving personality measures in personnel selection, however, has employed such measures in screening for psychological problems (e. …

Clinical Trials of Anti-osteoarthritic Agents

Two long-term studies of chondroprotective agents in the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA) have been the subject of considerable interest. The studies included large numbers of patients with OA of the hip and of the knee followed for ten and five years. A range of criteria were chosen as parameters for monitoring the progression of disease, and statistical analysis of the results showed that GP-C modified positively the progression of OA. In view of the large number of criteria assessed, and the complexity of the results, it was decided that a reevaluation of the gonarthritis study would be appropriate using a range of indices in the statistical analysis. The statistical re-analysis of data confirmed that long-term treatment with GP-C positively modifies the progression of OA.

Interactive Utility Assessment in Multicriteria Decision Analysis Using Implicit Trade-off Information

This paper introduces a methodology for the assessment of a decision-maker's utility function, based on interactions requiring relatively easy responses of the implicit trade-off type, i.e. similar to responses required in STEM or goal programming methods. The estimation of the value-function model to represent preferences is useful in ranking or pruning elements of the decision space. Inputs required from the decision-maker are, however, less demanding than the pairwise comparisons (or similar preference statements) typically required by value-function models. The methodology thus appears to be appropriate for relatively large numbers of criteria. An algorithm for implementing the proposed methodology for finite action spaces is developed and applied to examples involving up to 15 criteria.

Interactive Utility Assessment in Multicriteria Decision Analysis Using Implicit Trade-off Information

This paper introduces a methodology for the assessment of a decision-maker's utility function, based on interactions requiring relatively easy responses of the implicit trade-off type, i.e. similar to responses required in STEM or goal programming methods. The estimation of the value-function model to represent preferences is useful in ranking or pruning elements of the decision space. Inputs required from the decision-maker are, however, less demanding than the pairwise comparisons (or similar preference statements) typically required by value-function models. The methodology thus appears to be appropriate for relatively large numbers of criteria. An algorithm for implementing the proposed methodology for finite action spaces is developed and applied to examples involving up to 15 criteria.

A hierarchical interactive method for ranking alternatives with multiple qualitative criteria

In this study we deal with the problem of finding the most preferred composite ranking of a set of alternatives evaluated using a large number of criteria having a hierarchical structure. The criteria may be qualitative or quantitative. The decision maker evaluates alternatives using each criterion at the lowest (basic) level. That information is then used to construct the generalized correlation matrix to describe interdependencies between the criteria. The correlation matrix and the criterion hierarchy are the basic information used in the approach. Our interactive approach is designed to help the decision maker find the most preferred aggregation of the kth level criteria, which produces the criteria at the ( k + 1)st level. As the final result of the aggregation we obtain the strength of the preference matrix for the criterion at the highest level. By means of that matrix, we produce the final ranking of the alternatives using the Bowman and Colantoni (1973) model. The approach is easy to implement and convenient to use. We have implemented an experimental version of it on an Apple III microcomputer. The graphical colour display is used as an aid in finding the most preferred aggregation. An illustrative example is provided.

Villous tumors of the duodenum: a clinicopathologic study.

Eight villous tumors of the duodenum were found and studied in a review of surgical and autopsy material collected over 30 years. Although the number of cases is small, it is nevertheless one of the largest single series on this lesion that has been reported. The purposes of the study were (1) to describe the histopathology of the lesions and (2) to test the diagnostic criteria of malignancy previously proposed in the literature. Of the large number of criteria studied, none, alone or in combination, proved reliable indicators of malignancy; even in this small series exceptions could be found. Of all the criteria tested, however, secondary gland formation was found to be the most reliable. The value of endoscopic biopsies in establishing the preoperative diagnosis of malignancy in this lesion seems to be analogous to that in similar colonic lesions. Prognostic and therapeutic criteria are discussed. In addition, the pertinent literature is reviewed.

Démarrage en pompe des groupes réversibles -Différents procédés utilisables. Avantages et inconvénients.

Compared with ternary sets comprising two distinct conventional machines, i.e. a pump and a turbine, reversible pump-turbine units permit considerable reduction in the capital cost of pumped storage schemes provided power demands for pumpwise and turbinewise operation are similar and provided also that time of transition between modes is not a decisive factor. On the other hand, reversible sets rotating either way pose several problems, a major one being the best way to effect pumpwise start-up, more especially when unit power is high. A number of possible procedures are examined and, in each case, advantages, disadvantages and application constraints are stated. Start-up procedures available may be classified as in Figure 1 (table). From the turbine standpoint, start-up may be carried out with the runner either wet or dry. Wet runner start-up is clearly the simpler of the two, although high starting torque is required to overcome the drag of the water. Dry start-up has the disadvantage of requiring expensive compressed-air equipment for dewatering the runner. When unit power is large, the majority of the start-up procedures call for a dry runner. The curves of Figure 2 show the general shape of the variation of pump-turbine drag torque with speed of rotation for wet and dry runners. These curves also point up the advantages of supplying oil at the thrust bearing. Choice between wet and dry modes depends largely on torque available and torque required. As for the choice of the best start-up procedure for a reversible unit, this is by no means a simple matter since it depends on a large number of criteria, the most important being as follows : (i) Characteristics of the unit to be started up, i.e. power, inertia, driving couple, drag couple, reactance, time constants, etc. (ii) Characteristics of the network : short-circuit power, acceptable voltage drop, line and transformer design, etc. (iii) Times allowed for changing from pumping to generation and vice versa. (iv) Number of units required for turbine and pump operation. (v) Local conditions on site e.g. ease of installation of a special unit or possibility of connecting up with a unit in a neighbouring plant suitable for back-to-back start-up. When technically feasible, direct synchronous start-up is the simplest, most economical procedure. However, the present trend towards increased reversible unit power seems likely to create problems. These will be concerned not only with the design and construction of the machines but also with network operation. Such problems may lead to preferential use of other start-up procedures. Start-up under reduced voltage may sometimes have advantages. This is an economical method (especially when reactance coils are used for voltage reduction) which is well suited to fast machines with low start-up reactance. However, use of this method should be confined to machines with low drag torques. Asynchronous start-up motors on the same shaft are suited to most cases. However, this is an expensive solution especially if the plant is made up of several sets. None of the other methods are valid except in rather special cases. However, it is worth noting that progress with the static converter may make this technique competitive with others in cases where schemes use large numbers of sets. No method is perfect and for a given problem several solutions are possible.

Classification of analog electrical measuring instruments

From the large number of criteria that take into account the physical and technical nature of analog electrical measuring instruments, three have been singled out in the proposed classification which define the purpose, the metrological features (method of realizing the measuring process), and the technological features (nature of the major subassemblies). All analog instruments can be classified in accord with these criteria regardless of their structure, complexity of the equipment, and operating principles of the measuring transducer.