The requirements for public utility systems in the United States of America have grown enormously over the years triggering a tremendous shortage for space available to public utilities on and within transportation right-of-ways (ROW). Overcrowding and improper location of utilities has resulted in problems such as, damage to infrastructure, traffic accidents and, interruption of service to customers. The project titled, "Optimal Placement of Utilities within FDOT Right-of-Way", sponsored by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), and currently being investigated at the University of South Florida, presents a decision-making heuristic aimed at developing a better utility placement allocation system (Kranc et. al) [6]. Working in accordance with the guidelines of safety, relocation, and clearance for utility placement set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials organization (AASHTO), the heuristic finds suitable locations for the utilities in ROW corridors. However, a model being used to advocate a practice having large social and economical impacts is more likely to play the role of generic evidence in a trial, whose weight must ultimately be established by a 'jury'. The question being addressed to the system must be scrutinized carefully, and the formal structure updated iteratively until it proves capable of providing an answer to the given question. A good sensitivity analysis can provide this generic quality assurance to the model and help demonstrate the worthiness of the model itself. This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative sensitivity analysis of the abovementioned heuristic. The analysis is conducted in two parts, 1. The 'Model Factor Sensitivity Analysis', with the objective of assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling of the heuristic. This analysis focuses primarily on providing an evaluation of the confidence in the heuristic and its predictions by analyzing the influences that variations in the input factors have on the outputs of the utility cost assessment models and the final output of the heuristic itself. Variance based sensitivity indices derived from Sobol' sensitivity indices [42] are used here for this purpose. 2. The 'Model Output Evaluation and Enhancement' study, which initially focuses on understanding / evaluating the complexities of the discrete step, cost optimization procedure used in the heuristic and later, based on certain observed shortcomings and problems develops an enhancement, the Ideal Configuration Selector (ICS) to be implemented with the heuristic. The ICS addresses all the problems of the heuristic with the help of experimental speedup, positional sensitivity and refinement tools and employs a multi criterion evaluation technique for utility configuration assessment to provide substantiation to the outputs determined by the heuristic.

Many countries around the world integrated Renewable Energy Systems (RES) in their future energy plans in order to reduce negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption on the environment. However, RES may as well cause various environmental problems which are mostly related with the geographic locations of these facilities. The aim of this thesis is to create a Geographic Information System-based methodology for evaluating alternative locations for wind, solar and hybrid power plants by using fuzzy multi-criteria decision making. Environmental objectives and economical feasibility criteria for wind and solar systems are identified through Turkish legislations, previous studies, and interviews with General Directorate of Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development. Individual satisfaction degrees for each alternative location with respect to the identified environmental objectives and economical feasibility criteria are calculated using fuzzy set theory tools. Then these individual satisfaction degrees are aggregated into overall performance indexes which are used to determine priority maps for wind and solar energy generation facilities. Finally, maps of priority sites for wind and solar energy systems are overlaid to identify suitable locations for hybrid wind-solar energy systems. The proposed methodology is applied on a case study area composed of USak, Aydin, Denizli, Mugla, and Burdur provinces.

In this study, for the well-known Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method a new approach to interval priority weight generation from interval comparison matrix is proposed. This method can be used for both inconsistent and consistent matrices. Also for the problems having more than two hierarchical levels a synthesizing heuristic is presented. The performances of the methods, interval generation and synthesizing, are compared with the methods that are already available in the literature on randomly generated matrices.

One of the most important factors leading to success of a regional/national cleaner (sustainable) production strategy is sector-focused approach. Due to limited resources and other constraints, it is a necessity to make a prioritization between sectors for cleaner (sustainable) production practices. Thus, within the scope of this study, manufacturing industry sub-sectors in Izmir and in Turkey were prioritized based on various criteria. The results should assist policy makers in the preparation of related sectoral roadmaps and action plans.The prioritization of manufacturing industry sub-sector was accomplished via Multi- Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method with the integration of recent available data and by taking feedback from the stakeholders. Investigation of the sectoral priorities was carried out both at regional (Izmir) and national (Turkey) level. The criteria used in prioritization of manufacturing industry sub-sectors in Izmir were water and energy consumption, amount of wastewater discharged, amount of solid waste and hazardous waste generated, greenhouse gas emissions, HerfindahlHirschman Index (statistical measure of market concentration), sectoral employment, number of companies, export share, added value and suitability for cleaner (sustainable) production. In the prioritization analysis of Turkey all of the aforementioned criteria for Izmir except Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, number of companies and added value were used.Based on the results of this study, the top five high priority industrial sectors for cleaner (sustainable) production practices in Izmir are basic metal industry, food products and beverages, chemicals and chemical products, other non-metallic mineral products and coke and refined petroleum. In the sectoral prioritization analysis for cleaner (sustainable) production in Turkey textile industry takes the place of coke and refined petroleum. These sectors coincide with the priority sectors identified based on different purposes by other regional and national institutions.

Σχεδόν κάθε επιχείρηση ιδιωτικού και δημόσιου τομέα την οποία μπορούμε να σκεφτούμε, έχει βρεθεί αντιμέτωπη με το πρόβλημα της χωροθέτησης των εγκαταστάσεών της κάποια στιγμή στην ιστορία της. Αυτό έχει οδηγήσει σε ένα έντονο ενδιαφέρον για την ανάλυση χωροθέτησης στα πλαίσια της επιχειρησιακής έρευνας. Η εγκατάσταση ενός νέου τραπεζικού υποκαταστήματος που αποτελεί ένα σημαντικό μέρος του προγραμματισμού και της διαχείρισης δικτύων κλάδων. απαιτεί μία πολύπλοκη διαδικασία λήψης απόφασης. Η λήψης της απόφασης αυτής μπορεί να ωφεληθεί από τη χρήση της πολυκριτηριακής ανάλυσης αποφάσεων (MCDM) καθιστώντας τη διαδικασία πιο ορθολογική και αποδοτική. Στην παρούσα εργασία εξετάζουμε το πρόβλημα της χωροθέτησης ενός τραπεζικού καταστήματος στα πλαίσια της πολυκριτηριακής ανάλυσης αποφάσεων (MCDM). / Almost every private and public sector enterprise that we can think of, has been faced with the problem of locating facilities at one time or another of its history. Τhis has led to a strong interest in location analysis within the operations research and management science community. Locating a new bank branch, an important part of branch network planning and management is a complex decision making progress. This decision making progress can benefit from the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) progress by making the progress more explicit, rational and efficient. In the present work we examine the problem of locating a bank branch using MCDM.

Today, population census results are not only fundamental for population counting but also for providing various information to many organizations and people who make research and take decisions about human-related issues. However, statistics produced on the basis of administrative divisions in Turkey are inadequate to meet the needs of most In this study, a new census geography is aimed for Turkey using Geographic Information Systems and Multi Criteria Decision Making methodologies. This new census geography is for statistical purposes only, independent from legal boundaries and generated by the concept of small area statistics. New rules and methodologies are created by taking the United States and the United Kingdom systems as models to reach to the main aim, and then they are applied on a case study area, &Ccedil / ankaya District in Ankara. Through this application process, firstly all the collected graphical and nongraphical raw data are geo-referenced and combined in a common geodatabase. Secondly, this geodatabase is used to understand the differentiation of quality of life indicators across the case study area. This pattern is then used to draw the boundaries of small statistical units of the new census geography in terms of the previously defined population sizes. In conclusion, a nationwide standard census geography hierarchy, which ranges between national level at the top and block level at the bottom, is proposed for use in 2010 Population Census and afterwards.

This thesis is focused on multi-criteria decision making. There were chosen new EU countries for the evaluation. Then there were found suitable criteria and set scales for them. The multi-criteria analysis was made with five methods and then there was defined the compromise order. The results were compared in 2007 - 2010 period, when all countries became members of the EU and there was impact of the economical crisis in these years.

The aim of this diploma thesis is an analysis of financial products for students in the Czech Republic and the chosen country of the European Union. The theoretical part describes the basic concepts related to banking, financial mathematics and decision-making models. In the practical part individual student accounts are analyzed and then two model examples for the monthly costs account and for multi-criteria decision-making methods are processed.

One of the aims of the thesis was to explore the Czech insurance market and choose an optimal travel insurance to a model client by using methods of multi-criteria decision making. The second aim was to set up a general procedure for wider use of selecting the optimal insurance product for customers with different preferences. The theoretical part of the study explains the basic concepts in the field of insurance and describes the methods used for the weighting of the criteria and selection of the optimal insurance. In the practical part of the study, insurance offers were obtained, a set of possible variants and a set of evaluation criteria were compiled. Based on the calculations was given recommendation to the client. The whole procedure was generalized after that and for verification was carried out a survey among students participating in the study program Erasmus+

The thesis is concerned with multi-criteria evaluation of alternatives of modernization of compressor station for natural gas. This thesis is divided into practical part and theoretical part. The theoretical part will introduce historical development of the gas industry and the current state of the gas network in our country. The following describes a method for operating a compressor station, its technology units and existing operational processes. The theoretical part is a chapter that describes methods of multi-criteria evaluation of alternatives and a way of specifying the methods suitable for constructing weights of the criteria. The fifth chapter contains an application example, the aim of which is to choose the suitable way of modernization of the compressor station that would meet the requirements of planned projects. Creating recommendations for the management of the company fulfilled the goal of this thesis.