Value of information (VOI) is the amount a decision maker is willing to pay for information to better understand the uncertainty surrounding a decision, prior to making the decision. VOI is a key part of decision analysis (DA). Especially in this age of information explosion, evaluating information value is critical. VOI research tries to derive generic conclusions regarding VOI properties. However, in most cases, VOI properties rely on the specific decision context, which means that VOI properties may not be generalizable. Thus, instead, VOI properties have been derived for typical or representative decisions. In addition, VOI analysis as a method of DA has been successfully applied to practical decision problems in a variety of industries. This approach has also been adopted as the basis of a heuristic algorithm in the latest research in simulation and optimization. Portfolio Decision Analysis (PDA), rooted in DA, is a body of theories, methods, and practices that seek to help decision makers with limited budget select a subset of candidate items through mathematical modeling that accounts for relevant constraints, preferences, and uncertainties. As one of the main tools for resource allocation problems, its successful implementation, especially in capital-intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals and oil & gas, has been documented (Salo, Keisler and Morton 2011). Although VOI and PDA have been extensively researched separately, their combination has received attention only recently. Resource allocation problems are ubiquitous. Although significant attention has been directed at it, less energy has been focused on understanding the VOI within this setting, and the role of VOI analysis to solve resource allocation problems. This belief motivates the present work. We investigate VOI properties in portfolio contexts that can be modeled as a knapsack problem. By further looking at the properties, we illustrate how VOI analysis can derive portfolio management insights to facilitate PDA process. We also develop a method to evaluate the VOI of information portfolios and how the VOI will be affected by the correlations between information sources. Last, we investigate the performance of a widely implemented portfolio selection approach, the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) approach, in PDA practice. / text

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Fishery managers face two problems that are endemic to all renewable resource management: how much of the resource should be extracted, and how should resource users be managed to ensure efficiency and fairness. The predominant fishery management approach addresses these problems through fish stock assessment and resource economics. However, my review of the literature and analysis of the situation in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve show that both methodologies face serious difficulties: they deal inadequately with uncertainties about the causes of observed behaviour and the likely effects of different policies; they are too focused on readily measurable objectives; and they do not address the effects of the institutional context on management. In Chapter 3, I examine previous applications of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with a view to see if they can be applied to fishery management. My analysis shows that until now MCDA has been used to address only the first two sets of fishery management problems: systematically incorporating uncertainty and multiple objectives into policy development. I also argue that existing proposals for the use of Decision Analysis can be classified as variations of one version of MCDA, namely Multiple Stakeholder Decision Analysis (MSDA). The main problems that remain to be resolved relate to the interaction between experts, stakeholders, and managers when there are conflicting interpretations of evidence, and situations of high institutional inertia. In Chapter 4, I examine these problems within the context of ecological management experience and New Institutional Economics. I argue that for complex problems, such as those in the Danube Delta, management that aims to attain narrowly defined optimal fishing yields through command and control measures is unfeasable and undesirable. A more promising approach would seek to strengthen resilience, promote organisational variety, and increase the leverage of stakeholders over those who provide services for them. When one seeks to achieve such a transformation of management, I argue that the intervention needs to take into account the specific institutional circumstances of the client. In Chapter 5, I show how management procedures, problem perception, and strategy development are influenced by organisational structure and the hierarchical position of managers. That is why decision analysis interventions must address both technical as well as institutional needs of clients. In Chapter 6, I discuss Decision Conferencing, an alternative MCDA approach, and argue that it is more suitable for dealing with management problems such as those of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. Decision Conferences can provide a structure for expert, manager, and stakeholder interaction and can lead to the transformation of social realities. In Chapters 7 and 8, I review the context and concrete environmental and institutional problems that led to the first Decision Conference on an environmental management problem. I report the processes of the Decision Conference, the agreements reached, and anlyse both the short and medium term effects of the intervention. On the basis of that evidence I make claims about the general utility of the approach. The thesis concludes with proposals to improve Decision Conferencing through a framework that provides guidance for context specific process management and helps to ensure that a requisite variety of viewpoints are incorporated into management strategy development.

Despite the importance of roofs, improved roof selection has not been explored in significant depth. Therefore this research explores the possibilities that roofs offer to improve the value and sustainability of buildings. It is concerned with the roof as a system, explicitly connected with the building and their impacts on wider society. This research, develops and tests techniques to better understand what constitutes value and sustainability for a building project’s context through action research. The sustainability and value themes output through the use of such techniques are then considered as a basis for the selection of roof attributes through Keeney’s value focused thinking approach. Once the roof performance attributes have been established, designers and clients then require quantitative data to decide which roof type represents the highest value / most sustainable option. Thus the research also collates and maps peer reviewed quantitative performance data on the performance of roofing systems in relation to climate type as well as providing information from leading modelling packages for different roof options. An approach for selecting the most appropriate data is then developed. This allows the practitioner to be able to access reliable peer reviewed information and utilise leading modelling techniques to quickly gain information regarding the performance of various roof systems for use in the project context. An approach is developed to bring this information together with the important sustainability considerations for the project to inform sustainable roof selection. This combines the different types of roof performance with the relevant decision attributes early in the design process, to provide insight into which roof option represents the best overall economic, environmental and social value and therefore the most sustainable roof option. The primary contribution to knowledge presented in this thesis is the development of a pragmatic realist approach to sustainable roof selection.

<p>Planning is what sustains an energy system. It is a process of analysis and ongoing decision making about what resources and energy technologies to use when supplying energy to society. This research focuses on integrated energy systems, i.e. systems that are comprised of several energy carriers – electricity, gas, hot water - and energy distribution networks. The planning of these kinds of systems is a complex process, influenced by many factors, among which the most important are the availability of energy resources and the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying energy demand. During the last 10-20 years significant changes have taken place on the world energy scene, which have important implications for energy planning. Two main factors have triggered these changes. The first factor is the immediate need to address environmental changes or more generally, to take measures that are sustainable in the long run. Sustainability can be defined in many ways and in relation to different issues such as economic and ecologic development, reduction of greenhouse gases, responsible use of natural resources, social equity, etc. In recent years, an increased awareness of these issues has been observed at all levels of the society. The second factor is the deregulation of national energy sectors in more than 50 countries. This process brought changes in the ownership of different parts of the formerly integrated energy systems. New business opportunities were created in power generation, wholesale power/gas trading and energy retailing, while the energy infrastructures remained state owned or/and under regulatory control. The newly created energy markets (many of them international) have attracted both new players (power, oil and gas companies and financial institutions) together with the old ones (integrated utilities). In parallel with this vertical separation of national energy sectors, recent studies have shown a tendency for horizontal integration at the regional/company level. For instance, in order to reduce their overall business risk, companies prefer to participate in several segments of the energy value chain (in both regulated and non-regulated activities), and often across more than one fuel commodity, such as gas and electricity or district heating. In this context, the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying the end-use energy demand became obvious in economic as well as in technological and environmental terms. Traditionally, in integrated planning, this competition did not play a big role, since the same state entity made decisions at both national and regional levels. However, in the post-deregulation era it is no longer obvious who the planner is. In many cases, planning decision at local levels involve at least three main interest groups: energy companies (and/or other investors), the state and the local community. This thesis is motivated by the need to help planners to cope with the changes in concepts and values concerning the planning of local energy supply systems. This thesis has two aims. The first aim is to improve the understanding of what planning of local systems implies and how such a process can be structured. The second aim is to contribute to the development of decision support methodologies and tools that can cope with the needs in planning. For this purpose, the use of energy modelling and Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis has been studied.</p>

Planning is what sustains an energy system. It is a process of analysis and ongoing decision making about what resources and energy technologies to use when supplying energy to society. This research focuses on integrated energy systems, i.e. systems that are comprised of several energy carriers – electricity, gas, hot water - and energy distribution networks. The planning of these kinds of systems is a complex process, influenced by many factors, among which the most important are the availability of energy resources and the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying energy demand. During the last 10-20 years significant changes have taken place on the world energy scene, which have important implications for energy planning. Two main factors have triggered these changes. The first factor is the immediate need to address environmental changes or more generally, to take measures that are sustainable in the long run. Sustainability can be defined in many ways and in relation to different issues such as economic and ecologic development, reduction of greenhouse gases, responsible use of natural resources, social equity, etc. In recent years, an increased awareness of these issues has been observed at all levels of the society. The second factor is the deregulation of national energy sectors in more than 50 countries. This process brought changes in the ownership of different parts of the formerly integrated energy systems. New business opportunities were created in power generation, wholesale power/gas trading and energy retailing, while the energy infrastructures remained state owned or/and under regulatory control. The newly created energy markets (many of them international) have attracted both new players (power, oil and gas companies and financial institutions) together with the old ones (integrated utilities). In parallel with this vertical separation of national energy sectors, recent studies have shown a tendency for horizontal integration at the regional/company level. For instance, in order to reduce their overall business risk, companies prefer to participate in several segments of the energy value chain (in both regulated and non-regulated activities), and often across more than one fuel commodity, such as gas and electricity or district heating. In this context, the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying the end-use energy demand became obvious in economic as well as in technological and environmental terms. Traditionally, in integrated planning, this competition did not play a big role, since the same state entity made decisions at both national and regional levels. However, in the post-deregulation era it is no longer obvious who the planner is. In many cases, planning decision at local levels involve at least three main interest groups: energy companies (and/or other investors), the state and the local community. This thesis is motivated by the need to help planners to cope with the changes in concepts and values concerning the planning of local energy supply systems. This thesis has two aims. The first aim is to improve the understanding of what planning of local systems implies and how such a process can be structured. The second aim is to contribute to the development of decision support methodologies and tools that can cope with the needs in planning. For this purpose, the use of energy modelling and Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis has been studied.

In decision theory the process of selecting the best option is called preferential choice. Many personal, business, and professional preferential choice decisions are made every day. In these situations, a decision maker must select the optimal option among multiple alternatives. In order to do this, she must be able to analyze a model of her preferences with respect to the objectives that are important to her. Prescriptive decision theory suggests several ways to effectively develop a decision model. However, these methods often end up too tedious and complicated to apply to complex decisions that involve many objectives and alternatives. In order to help people make better decisions, an easier, more intuitive way to develop interactive models for analysis of decision contexts is needed. The application of interactive visualization techniques to this problem is an opportune solution. A visualization tool to help in preferential choice must take into account important aspects from both fields of Information Visualization and Decision Theory. There exists some proposals that claim to aid preferential choice, but some key tasks and steps from at least one of these areas are often overlooked. An added missing element in these proposals is an adequate user evaluation. In fact, the concept of a good evaluation in the field of information visualization is a topic of debate, since the goals of such systems stretch beyond what can be concluded from traditional usability testing. In our research we investigate ways to overcome some of the challenges faced in the design and evaluation of visualization systems for preferential choice. In previous work, Carenini and Lloyd proposed ValueCharts, a set of visualizations and interactive techniques to support the inspection of linear models of preferences. We now identify the need to consider the decision process in its entirety, and to redesign ValueCharts in order to support all phases of preferential choice. We present our task-based approach to the redesign of ValueCharts grounded in recent findings from both Decision Analysis and Information Visualization. We propose a set of domain-independent tasks for the design and evaluation of interactive visualizations for preferential choice. We then use the resulting framework as a basis for an analytical evaluation of our tool and alternative approaches. Finally, we use an application of the task model in conjunction with a new blend of evaluation methods to assess the utility of ValueCharts.

In decision theory the process of selecting the best option is called preferential choice. Many personal, business, and professional preferential choice decisions are made every day. In these situations, a decision maker must select the optimal option among multiple alternatives. In order to do this, she must be able to analyze a model of her preferences with respect to the objectives that are important to her. Prescriptive decision theory suggests several ways to effectively develop a decision model. However, these methods often end up too tedious and complicated to apply to complex decisions that involve many objectives and alternatives. In order to help people make better decisions, an easier, more intuitive way to develop interactive models for analysis of decision contexts is needed. The application of interactive visualization techniques to this problem is an opportune solution. A visualization tool to help in preferential choice must take into account important aspects from both fields of Information Visualization and Decision Theory. There exists some proposals that claim to aid preferential choice, but some key tasks and steps from at least one of these areas are often overlooked. An added missing element in these proposals is an adequate user evaluation. In fact, the concept of a good evaluation in the field of information visualization is a topic of debate, since the goals of such systems stretch beyond what can be concluded from traditional usability testing. In our research we investigate ways to overcome some of the challenges faced in the design and evaluation of visualization systems for preferential choice. In previous work, Carenini and Lloyd proposed ValueCharts, a set of visualizations and interactive techniques to support the inspection of linear models of preferences. We now identify the need to consider the decision process in its entirety, and to redesign ValueCharts in order to support all phases of preferential choice. We present our task-based approach to the redesign of ValueCharts grounded in recent findings from both Decision Analysis and Information Visualization. We propose a set of domain-independent tasks for the design and evaluation of interactive visualizations for preferential choice. We then use the resulting framework as a basis for an analytical evaluation of our tool and alternative approaches. Finally, we use an application of the task model in conjunction with a new blend of evaluation methods to assess the utility of ValueCharts.

In decision theory the process of selecting the best option is called preferential choice. Many personal, business, and professional preferential choice decisions are made every day. In these situations, a decision maker must select the optimal option among multiple alternatives. In order to do this, she must be able to analyze a model of her preferences with respect to the objectives that are important to her. Prescriptive decision theory suggests several ways to effectively develop a decision model. However, these methods often end up too tedious and complicated to apply to complex decisions that involve many objectives and alternatives. In order to help people make better decisions, an easier, more intuitive way to develop interactive models for analysis of decision contexts is needed. The application of interactive visualization techniques to this problem is an opportune solution. A visualization tool to help in preferential choice must take into account important aspects from both fields of Information Visualization and Decision Theory. There exists some proposals that claim to aid preferential choice, but some key tasks and steps from at least one of these areas are often overlooked. An added missing element in these proposals is an adequate user evaluation. In fact, the concept of a good evaluation in the field of information visualization is a topic of debate, since the goals of such systems stretch beyond what can be concluded from traditional usability testing. In our research we investigate ways to overcome some of the challenges faced in the design and evaluation of visualization systems for preferential choice. In previous work, Carenini and Lloyd proposed ValueCharts, a set of visualizations and interactive techniques to support the inspection of linear models of preferences. We now identify the need to consider the decision process in its entirety, and to redesign ValueCharts in order to support all phases of preferential choice. We present our task-based approach to the redesign of ValueCharts grounded in recent findings from both Decision Analysis and Information Visualization. We propose a set of domain-independent tasks for the design and evaluation of interactive visualizations for preferential choice. We then use the resulting framework as a basis for an analytical evaluation of our tool and alternative approaches. Finally, we use an application of the task model in conjunction with a new blend of evaluation methods to assess the utility of ValueCharts. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

Metastatic epidural spinal cord compression (MESCC) occurs when tumour invades the epidural space and compresses the spinal cord. Despite Level 1 evidence that surgery is the most effective treatment for MESCC, there is controversy regarding the role of surgery because of fear that patients who have a short survival will spend a large fraction of their remaining life recovering from surgery and potential complications. This controversy could be resolved by decision-analysis of MESCC treatments using quality-adjusted-life-years (QALYs). There have been two barriers to conducting decision-analysis of QALYs for MESCC: (a) lack of utility data, and (b) skepticism regarding decision-analysis. The first four research chapters in this thesis address these barriers. The final research chapter reports a decision-analysis of QALYs on the role of surgery in MESCC. Chapter 1 provides background information on the controversy regarding surgical treatment for MESCC and the rationale for each of the subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 reports a psychometric validation study of a web-based utility valuation module for MESCC. In Chapter 3, application of this module to a general population utility valuation study with a market research panel is described. In Chapter 4, the beneficial properties of Bayesian statistical analysis to minimizing “arbitrariness” in probabilistic sensitivity analysis are described in relation to prognostication for MESCC. Chapter 5 presents a strategy for simplifying and enhancing the transparency of Markov cohort simulation. Finally, the work presented in the research chapters is applied in Chapter 6 to conduct Markov cohort simulation to determine if patients with short survival derive net health-related quality-of-life benefit from surgery. Pragmatic research around barriers to decision-analysis of QALYs for MESCC was conducted to resolve the controversy regarding the role of surgery in the treatment of MESCC. Under most circumstances, MESCC patients who can ambulate prior to treatment derive net HRQoL benefit from surgery, even if prognosis is poor. Non-ambulatory patients can derive net HRQoL benefit but only if the morbidity of surgery is relatively low. It is my hope that the work used to address barriers to decision-analysis of QALYs will be disseminated and applied in other clinical problems.