Multi-criteria Decision Aid Tool Research Articles

Energy-Efficient Solutions: A Multi-Criteria Decision Aid Tool to Achieve the Targets of the European EPDB Directive

The building and construction sector has a significant impact on the CO2 emissions and pollutants released into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change. The EPDB Directive mandates the achievement of minimum energy class E for all residential buildings by 2030 and energy class D by 2033. Particularly, in Italy, about 86% of the existing building stock predates the enactment of any energy laws or regulations, making it imperative to apply the energy efficiency interventions. This paper provides a support decision tool for the identification of the standardized interventions in the building envelope, the air conditioning system, and domestic hot water production. This study is focused on a specific construction period class (1976–1990) in six different climatic zones. The methodological approach is based on a cataloguing phase and the definition of ante operam energy classes as well as on case study identification, energy requalification intervention identification, solution simulations, and cost estimation. By simulating the standardized interventions for each climatic zone, a range of possible combinations is identified. The most advantageous ones are determined based on a cost–benefit analysis considering the potential class jump achieved. The research result is a matrix of energy efficiency interventions that is applicable to each climatic zone and can be extended to the existing housing stock.

A Multi-Criteria Decision Aid Tool for Radiopharmaceutical Selection in Tau PET Imaging.

The accumulation of pathologically misfolded tau is a feature shared by a group of neurodegenerative disorders collectively referred to as tauopathies. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent of these tauopathies. Immunohistochemical evaluation allows neuropathologists to visualize paired-helical filaments (PHFs)-tau pathological lesions, but this is possible only after death and only shows tau in the portion of brain sampled. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging allows both the quantitative and qualitative analysis of pathology over the whole brain of a living subject. The ability to detect and quantify tau pathology in vivo using PET can aid in the early diagnosis of AD, provide a way to monitor disease progression, and determine the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions aimed at reducing tau pathology. Several tau-specific PET radiotracers are now available for research purposes, and one is approved for clinical use. This study aims to analyze, compare, and rank currently available tau PET radiotracers using the fuzzy preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations (PROMETHEE), which is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool. The evaluation is based on relatively weighted criteria, such as specificity, target binding affinity, brain uptake, brain penetration, and rates of adverse reactions. Based on the selected criteria and assigned weights, this study shows that a second-generation tau tracer, [18F]RO-948, may be the most favorable. This flexible method can be extended and updated to include new tracers, additional criteria, and modified weights to help researchers and clinicians select the optimal tau PET tracer for specific purposes. Additional work is needed to confirm these results, including a systematic approach to defining and weighting criteria and clinical validation of tracers in different diseases and patient populations.

Macro Sustainability across Countries: Key Sector Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis

When formulating economic development strategies, the environment and society must be considered to preserve well-being. This paper proposes a comparative sustainability assessment method using environmentally extended input-output analysis and multi-criteria decision aid. Using symmetric input-output tables and sectoral CO2 emissions and employment data for six countries, linkage coefficients are calculated for 163 sectors in each country. Multi-criteria decision aid tool, ELECTRE III, is used to derive outranking relationships among each country’s sectors using these coefficients as criteria, resulting in a hierarchy of sectors ordered by sustainability. Sectors that frequently appear at the top of the six hierarchies included education, health care, construction, and financial intermediation. China’s results differ significantly because of its concentration of economic activity on the primary/secondary sectors. The results can enable identification of key intervention pathways along which sustainable development could be stimulated. Country-specific recommendations and reflections on economic and sustainability policy initiatives are discussed.

Use of multicriteria decision aid methods in the context of sustainable innovations: bibliometrics, applications and trends

Sustainable innovation has gained prominence in recent years, due to the demands imposed by global competition, social pressures and the needs of consumers and the environment. Decision-making processes about sustainable innovation are complex and often require auxiliary instruments to reduce uncertainties. Multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) methods can be a useful tool to make these kinds of decisions more assertive. This article presents the main discussions and theoretical approaches through bibliometrics on the application of MCDA methods in the context of sustainable innovations. We used the R package Bibliometrix library to organize the data of the publications and perform the processing for the generated analyzes. The bibliometric analysis provided an overview about the use of MCDA in sustainable innovations (MIS) and it presents citation analysis; identification of central authors through co-citation analysis; main topics, conceptual structure and thematic evolution of the literature by co-word analysis. As main results, we identified the main trends in MIS: there has been a substantial increase in publications on this theme, and the most explored focuses are “product development, production and distribution” and “environmental or social impact assessment” and there is an opportunity to further explore the focuses of “evaluation or selection of projects, suppliers or resources”, “product life cycle management or assessment” and “definition of decision criteria and standards for sustainable innovation performance”. In addition, several MCDA tools have been successfully used for studies of sustainable innovations, demonstrating that there is no preferable method to use for a given focus.

Dimensionality reduction for multi-criteria problems: An application to the decommissioning of oil and gas installations

This paper is motivated by decommissioning studies in the field of oil and gas, which comprise a very large number of installations and are of interest to a large number of stakeholders. Generally, the problem gives rise to complicated multi-criteria decision aid tools that rely upon the costly evaluation of multiple criteria for every piece of equipment. We propose the use of machine learning techniques to reduce the number of criteria by feature selection, thereby reducing the number of required evaluations and producing a simplified decision aid tool with no sacrifice in performance. In addition, we also propose the use of machine learning to explore the patterns of the multi-criteria decision aid tool in a training set. Hence, we predict the outcome of the analysis for the remaining pieces of equipment, effectively replacing the multi-criteria analysis by the computational intelligence acquired from running it in the training set. Computational experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Multidimensional sustainability benchmarking for smart megacities

This paper is focused on sustainability assessment for some of the most prominent global megacities: London, New York, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. The alternative city rankings are compared and linkages between different sustainability and smart city dimensions are explored. The paper applied ELECTRE III multi-criteria decision aid tool to a panel of twenty indicators. The proposed approach allowed considering performance under four different policy priorities: environmental, economic, social and smart, changing the focus of the sustainability assessment. The results have shown that Singapore dominates the sustainability rankings under environmental policy priorities. Tokyo leads under economic and social priorities, and London and Tokyo – under smart city priorities. The worst performing cities were Shanghai, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro. The paper examines the innovative sustainability strategy and new governance structures that led Singapore to become the most sustainable city under environmental priorities and offers recommendations for the lower-ranking cities of Shanghai, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro. The assessment could be a valuable tool for policy makers and investors, and could help identify linkages between different sustainability dimensions, highlighting best practices as well as strategic opportunities in cities with sustainability potential.

Multi-Criteria Evaluation for China Low-Impact Development Based on Principal Component Analysis

Multiple benefit evaluation may become complicated due to varied and unquantifiable indicators. This study presents a multicriteria approach to evaluate Low Impact Development (LID) performance through an aggregation of principal component analysis and correlation analysis (PCCA). The approach is based on the rule of triple bottom line and complies with the China-specific planning land-use type and site-specific hydrologic and hydrologic condition. The quantitative indicators are coupled with the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) software and filed investigation; the qualitative indicators are valued by a numerical unit system that converts the level of importance to numbers 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. The results indicate that the PCCA approach could evaluate the LID performance with fewer dimensions of variables based on environmental, economic and social concerns comprehensively. The principal components concentrated on three streams: (1) runoff quantity and quality control; (2) minimize cost and improve robustness; and (3) improve system management and aesthetic enhancement. Taken together, these streams match the objective of sponge city construction with LID techniques. The PCCA approach is a multicriteria decision-aid tool that helps the decision maker choose the appropriate LID technique.

Multicriteria decision aid tool for the operational management of an industry: a constructivist case

The objective of this work is to construct a performance evaluation model to provide support to a production director in the management of the productive operations of a furniture industry. In this sense, we sought through the Multicriteria Decision Aid Constructivist Methodology (i) to identify the factors considered important by the production director for evaluating the performance of productive operations, (ii) to measure each criterion of performance evaluation, (iii) to integrate the criteria to allow the evaluation of organizational performance at the tactical and strategic levels and (iv) to develop a process to manage the actions of productive operations improvement.As a research result we have a performance evaluation model for supporting the management of the productive operations. We conclude that the MCDA-C allowed for building the knowledge of the decision-maker on how to identify and measure the critical variables and manage the performance of the productive operations.

Decision Support System and Multi‐Criteria Decision Aid: A State of the Art and Perspectives

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to highlight the role of the Decision Support System within the field of multi‐criteria decision aid (MCDA). The MCDA tools have been incorporated into systems to create Multi‐Criteria Decision Support Systems (MCDSSs). In our literature review, we noticed that more than 100 papers have been written over a 20‐year period in which MCDSS was used as a decision‐making tool. The present paper describes some real applications of MCDSS in different fields, harmoniously combined with decision‐making methods such as analytic hierarchy process, Utility Additive, and Goal Programming. The present study proposes an integrative MCDSS evaluation through guidance on the tools most useful for a specific user with a particular decision problem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A new multilateral multi-issue negotiation protocol and its application to a crisis management problem

In this paper, a new protocol to address multilateral multi-issue negotiation in a cooperative context is presented. Complex dependencies between multiple issues are considered by modelling the preferences of the agents with a multi-criteria decision aid tool, also enabling to extract relevant information on a proposal assessment. This information is used in the protocol to help in accelerating the search for a consensus between the cooperative agents. In addition, the negotiation procedure is defined to address distributed allocation problem and applied in a crisis management context, with the common objective of the agents considered in the preferences of a mediator agent.

Ex ante assessment of the sustainability of alternative cropping systems: implications for using multi-criteria decision-aid methods. A review

Sustainability is a holistic and complex multi-dimensional concept encompassing economic, social and environmental issues, and its assessment is a key step in the implementation of sustainable agricultural systems. Realistic assessments of sustainability require: (1) the integration of diverse information concerning economic, social and environmental objectives; and (2) the handling of conflicting aspects of these objectives as a function of the views and opinions of the individuals involved in the assessment process. The assessment of sustainability is therefore increasingly regarded as a typical decision-making problem that could be handled by multi-criteria decision-aid (MCDA) methods. However, the number and variability of MCDA methods are continually increasing, and these methods are not all equally relevant for sustainability assessment. The demands for such approaches are also rapidly changing, and faster ex ante assessment approaches are required, to address scales currently insufficiently dealt with, such as cropping system level. Researchers regularly carry out comparative analyses of MCDA methods and propose guidelines for the selection of a priori relevant methods for the assessment problem considered. However, many of the selection criteria used are based on technical/operational assumptions that have little to do with the specificities of ex ante sustainability assessment of alternative cropping systems. We attempt here to provide a reasoned comparative review of the main groups of MCDA methods, based on considerations related to those specificities. The following main guidelines emerge from our discussion of these methods: (1) decision rule-based and outranking qualitative MCDA methods should be preferred; (2) different MCDA tools should be used simultaneously, making it possible to evaluate and compare the results obtained; and (3) a relevantly structured group of decision-makers should be established for the selection of tool variants of the choosen MCDA methods, the design/choice of sustainability criteria, and the analysis and interpretation of the evaluation results.

Agricultural countermeasures in nuclear emergency management: a stakeholders' survey for multi-criteria model development

In order to accommodate the use of multi-criteria decision-aid tools for nuclear crisis management in the Belgian context, a stakeholder process was carried out, aiming to add in stakeholders' values and practical knowledge in the models developed for decision support. The main steps are described in this paper, following a case study concerning the management of contaminated milk. We argue in favour of a systematic interaction with relevant stakeholders in all phases of the decision analysis. Some difficulties arising from the complexity of the problem itself, as well as from the different points of view of relevant stakeholders are illustrated and discussed. Suggestions are given for resolving this in a decision-aid framework and an example is provided throughout the paper for a better understanding of the issues involved.