Over the last 20 years, electricity markets around the world have gradually been deregulated, creating wholesale markets in which generating companies compete for the right to supply electricity, through an offering system. This thesis considers the optimisation of the offering process from the perspective of an individual generator, subject to intertemporal constraints including fuel limitations, correlated rest-of-market behaviour patterns and unit operational decisions. Contributions from the thesis include a Pre-Processing scheme that results in considerable computational benefits for a two-level Dynamic Programming method, in addition to the development of a new process that combines the techniques of Decision Analysis and Dynamic Programming.

Sustainable transport is now a popular goal of transport planning. As with any aspiration, systems and mechanisms are required to assess and gauge success in achieving this policy goal. There is increasing reliance on sustainable transport indicators as appropriate tools for this purpose. The usefulness and credibility of any indicator-based assessment will undoubtedly depend on the specific indicators utilised. As such, indicators must be selected carefully to maximise their contribution to the sustainable transport decision making process. A review of current applications of sustainable transport indicators has revealed however, that they are typically selected in an ad hoc and arbitrary fashion. Development of a framework that facilitates transparent and systematic indicator selection would therefore represent a significant advance in transport research. In that regard, this thesis presents the Evaluative and Logical Approach to Sustainable Transport Indicator Compilation (ELASTIC), a methodological framework which provides a flexible, participatory and systematic mechanism for identifying and selecting key sustainable transport indicators. The output of ELASTIC is the Transport Sustainability Profile (TSP), a small un-aggregated suite of sustainable transport indicators which together can provide a snapshot of the sustainability of a transport system. Using various multi-criteria and statistical techniques, ELASTIC applies a robust process to evaluate and select indicators based on their analytical soundness and their relevance to key objectives of sustainable transport. A generic and transferable tool, ELASTIC is capable of application at different geographical scales as well as to non-transport sustainability assessment. For the purpose of this research, the framework is demonstrated through application to England, UK where the judgements of relevant Academics and Transport Planners are elicited and entered into the ELASTIC framework to systematically select a subset of 15 indicators from an initial set of 200. By disaggregating the sample of stakeholders into regional groupings, different context-specific suites of indicators for the regional groupings were also derived. The demonstration confirms ELASTIC to be an inclusive and practical approach to compiling a suite of sustainable transport indicators specific to context and which reflects the unique values of key stakeholders.

One of the serious and growing potential problems in most large urban areas is the shortage of land for waste disposal. Although there are some efforts to reduce and recover the waste, disposal in landfills is still the most common method for waste destination. An inappropriate landfill site may have negative environmental, economic and ecological impacts. Therefore, it should be selected carefully by considering both regulations and constraints on other sources. In this study, candidate sites for an appropriate landfill area in the vicinity of Ankara are determined by using the integration of Geographic Information Systems and Multicriteria Decision Analysis. For this purpose, sixteen input map layers including topography, settlements (urban centers and villages), roads (Highway E90 and village roads), railways, airport, wetlands, infrastructures (pipelines and power lines), slope, geology, land use, floodplains, aquifers and surface water are prepared and two different MCDA methods (Simple Additive Weighting and Analytic Hierarchy Process) are implemented in GIS environment. Comparison of the maps produced by these two different methods shows that both methods yield conformable results. Field checks also confirm that the candidate sites agree well with the selected criteria.

abstract: Sinaloa, a coastal state in the northwest of Mexico, is known for irrigated conventional agriculture, and is considered one of the greatest successes of the Green Revolution. With the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s, Sinaloa farmers shifted out of conventional wheat, soy, cotton, and other commodities and into white maize, a major food staple in Mexico that is traditionally produced by millions of small-scale farmers. Sinaloa is now a major contributor to the national food supply, producing 26% of total domestic white maize production. Research on Sinaloa's maize has focused on economic and agronomic components. Little attention, however, has been given to the environmental sustainability of Sinaloa's expansion in maize. With uniquely biodiverse coastal and terrestrial ecosystems that support economic activities such as fishing and tourism, the environmental consequences of agriculture in Sinaloa are important to monitor. Agricultural sustainability assessments have largely focused on alternative agricultural approaches, or espouse alternative philosophies that are biased against conventional production. Conventional agriculture, however, provides a significant portion of the world's calories. In addition, incentives such as federal subsidies and other institutions complicate transitions to alternative modes of production. To meet the agricultural sustainability goals of food production and environmental stewardship, we must put conventional agriculture on a more sustainable path. One step toward achieving this is structuring agricultural sustainability assessments around achievable goals that encourage continual adaptations toward sustainability. I attempted this in my thesis by assessing conventional maize production in Sinaloa at the regional/state scale using network analysis and incorporating stakeholder values through a multicriteria decision analysis approach. The analysis showed that the overall sustainability of Sinaloa maize production is far from an ideal state. I made recommendations on how to improve the sustainability of maize production, and how to better monitor the sustainability of agriculture in Sinaloa. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Sustainability 2011

Uncertainty associated with the potential impact of climate change on supply availability, varied success with demand-side interventions such as water efficiency and changes in priority relating to hydrometric data collection and ownership, have resulted in challenges for water resources system management particularly in data-sparse regions. Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to assess the reliability, resilience and sustainability of water resources systems in both data-rich and data-sparse regions with an emphasis on robust decision-making in data-sparse regions. To achieve this aim, new resilience indicators that capture water resources system failure duration and extent of failure (i.e. failure magnitude) from a social and environmental perspective were developed. These performance indicators enabled a comprehensive assessment of a number of performance enhancing interventions, which resulted in the identification of a set of intervention strategies that showed potential to improve reliability, resilience and sustainability in the case studies examined. Finally, a multi-criteria decision analysis supported trade-off decision making when the reliability, resilience and sustainability indicators were considered in combination. Two case studies were considered in this research: Kingston and St. Andrew in Jamaica and Anyplace in the UK. The Kingston and St. Andrew case study represents the main data-sparse case study where many assumptions were introduced to fill data gaps. The intervention strategy that showed great potential to improve reliability, resilience and sustainability identified from Kingston and St. Andrew water resources assessment was the ‘Site A-east’ desalination scheme. To ameliorate uncertainty and lack of confidence associated with results, a methodology was developed that transformed a key proportion of the Anyplace water resources system from a data-rich environment to a data-sparse environment. The Anyplace water resources system was then assessed in a data-sparse environment and the performance trade-offs of the intervention strategies were analysed using four multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) weighting combinations. The MCDA facilitated a robust comparison of the interventions’ performances in the data-rich and data-sparse case studies. Comparisons showed consistency in the performances of the interventions across data-rich and data-sparse hydrological conditions and serve to demonstrate to decision makers a novel approach to addressing uncertainty when many assumptions have been introduced in the water resources management process due to data sparsity.

For many decisions validation of their outcomes is invariably problematic to objectively assess. Therefore to aid analysis and validation of decision outcomes, approaches which provide improved traceability and more semantically meaningful measurements of the decision process are required. Hence, this research investigates traceability, transparency, interactivity and auditability to improve the decision making process. Approaches and evaluation measures are proposed to facilitate a richer decision making experience. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) seeks to determine the suitability of alternatives of a goal with respect to multiple criteria. A key component of prominent MCDA methods is the concept of pairwise comparison. For a set of elements, pairwise comparison enables an accurate and transparent extraction and codification of a decision maker’s preferences, though facilitating a separation of concerns. From a set of pairwise comparisons, a ranking of the elements under consideration can be calculated. There are scenarios when a set of pairwise comparisons undergo alteration, both for individual and multiple decision makers. A set of measures of compromise are proposed to quantify the alteration that a set of pairwise comparisons undergo in such scenarios. The measures seek to provide a decision maker with meaningful knowledge regarding how their views have altered. A set of pairwise comparisons may be inconsistent. When inconsistency is present it adversely affects a ranking of the elements derived from the comparisons. Moreover inconsistency within pairwise comparisons used for consideration of more than a handful of elements is almost inevitable. Existing approaches that seek to alter a set of comparisons to reduce inconsistency lack traceability, flexibility, and specific consideration of alteration to the judgments in a way that is meaningful to a decision maker. An approach to inconsistency reduction is proposed that seeks to address these issues. For many decisions the opinions of multiple decision makers are utilized, either to avail of their combined expertise or to incorporate conflicting views. Aggregation of multiple decision makers’ pairwise companions seek to combine the views of the group into a single representation of views. An approach to group aggregation of pairwise comparisons is proposed that models compromise between the decision makers, facilitates decision maker constraints, considers inconsistency reduction during aggregation and dynamically incorporates decision maker weights of importance. With internet access becoming widespread being able to garner the views of a large group of decision makers’ views has become feasible. An approach to the aggregation of a large group of decision makers’ preferences is proposed. The approach facilitates understanding regarding both the agreement and conflict within the group during calculation of an overall group consensus. A Multi-Objective Optimisation Decision Software (MOODS) prototype tool has been developed that implements both the new measures of compromise and the proposed approaches to inconsistency reduction and group aggregation.

The aim of dissertation is to analyse provided services in chosen area and evaluate them by quantitative methods. At the beginning of thesis there are delimited theoretical terms connected with this area. For practital part was chosen few companies for comparison by chosen multicriteria method, which was evaluated and was chosen best company by results of method. At the end of thesis are introduced suggestions for services improvement of companies.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-02T21:42:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EstherCosso.pdf: 1448453 bytes, checksum: 7f6b856aa66e8a64781ff52f423f1867 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-31 / Over time, many studies have been conducted with the aim of understanding the differences between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial people and especially what leads people to have such different attitudes. However, such studies generally focus on isolated features which can be understood by constructs, without the effective capacity of developers to build profiles. Another important aspect is that most studies on entrepreneurship, for social and historical reasons, focus on male entrepreneurship only. On this last point, while there are many studies already undertaken and in progress with the aim of correcting this distortion in the study of entrepreneurship, to include and highlight the feminine side of entrepreneurship, there is still much to do. This study, therefore, has several objectives and courses of action: focus on female entrepreneurship, selecting the most important constructs of entrepreneurship from a feminine and ultimately build a successful entrepreneurial profile. That is, to build a profile in which the various constructs may relate to each other, and are organized hierarchically in terms of importance. Therefore, this study had the support of the Center for Women Entrepreneurs (NME) of the Commercial and Industrial Association of Santo André, where the study was conducted, being this a group of innovative and pioneering women in the organization of female entrepreneurship in the State of São Paul and active in the ABC Paulista. To achieve the defined objectives, this study had several phases as the initial interview, where relevant constructs were identified and contrast with the literature - bibliometric research with the aim of amalgamating the vision of NME with what has been previously published. Innovatively, it was attempted to use a technique from the family of Multicriteria Decision Analysis, PAPRIKA (Potentially all pairwise rankings of all possible alternatives), as part of the interviews and questionnaires in order to be able to organize the hierarchical relationships between constructs, which proved adequate and compatible with the original purpose. Finally, using the Paprika and the interviews, it was possible to construct a hierarchically related final profile of which are most important in successful female entrepreneur constructs, according to the vision of a group of entrepreneurial women / Ao longo do tempo, diversos estudos foram realizados com a intenção de compreender as diferenças entre pessoas empreendedoras e não empreendedoras e, especialmente, o que leva tais pessoas a terem atitudes. No entanto tais estudos geralmente focam características isoladas, que podem ser compreendidas por meio de construtos, sem a capacidade efetiva de construir perfis empreendedores. Outro aspecto importante é que a maioria dos estudos sobre o empreendedorismo, por características sociais e históricas, tem como foco o empreendedor masculino. Neste último aspecto, por mais que haja muitos estudos já realizados e em curso com o objetivo de corrigir esta distorção no estudo do empreendedorismo, ao incluir e evidenciar a parte feminina do empreendedorismo, ainda há muito a fazer. Este estudo, portanto, tem vários objetivos e cursos de ação: enfocar o empreendedorismo feminino, selecionar os construtos de empreendedorismo mais importantes sob a ótica feminina e, finalmente, construir um perfil empreendedor. Isto é, construir um perfil em que os diversos construtos se relacionam entre si e se organizam hierarquicamente em termos de importância. Para tanto, este estudo contou com o apoio do Núcleo de Mulheres Empreendedoras (NME) da Associação Comercial e Industrial de Santo André, onde o estudo foi realizado, sendo este um grupo de mulheres inovadoras e pioneiras na organização do empreendedorismo feminino no Estado de São Paulo e atuantes no ABC Paulista. Para conseguir os objetivos definidos, este estudo contou com várias fases como a entrevista inicial, onde foram identificados construtos relevantes e o contraste com a literatura - pesquisa bibliométrica com o objetivo de amalgamar a visão do NME com o que já foi previamente publicado. De forma inovadora, buscou-se utilizar uma técnica da família da Análise de Decisão Multicritério, a PAPRIKA (sigla inglesa para Ranqueamento Pareado Potencial de todas as Alternativas Possíveis), como parte das entrevistas e questionários, de modo a ser possível organizar as relações hierárquicas entre os construtos, que se mostrou adequado e compatível com o propósito original. Finalmente, utilizando-se da PAPRIKA e das entrevistas, foi possível construir um perfil final relacionado hierarquicamente de quais construtos são mais importantes no sucesso empreendedor feminino, de acordo com a visão de um grupo de mulheres empreendedoras.

abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies environmental impacts of products in raw material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution, use and final disposal. The findings of an LCA can be used to improve industry practices, to aid in product development, and guide public policy. Unfortunately, existing approaches to LCA are unreliable in the cases of emerging technologies, where data is unavailable and rapid technological advances outstrip environmental knowledge. Previous studies have demonstrated several shortcomings to existing practices, including the masking of environmental impacts, the difficulty of selecting appropriate weight sets for multi-stakeholder problems, and difficulties in exploration of variability and uncertainty. In particular, there is an acute need for decision-driven interpretation methods that can guide decision makers towards making balanced, environmentally sound decisions in instances of high uncertainty. We propose the first major methodological innovation in LCA since early establishment of LCA as the analytical perspective of choice in problems of environmental management. We propose to couple stochastic multi-criteria decision analytic tools with existing approaches to inventory building and characterization to create a robust approach to comparative technology assessment in the context of high uncertainty, rapid technological change, and evolving stakeholder values. Namely, this study introduces a novel method known as Stochastic Multi-attribute Analysis for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (SMAA-LCIA) that uses internal normalization by means of outranking and exploration of feasible weight spaces. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering 2013

Orientador: Denis Jose Schiozer / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T19:34:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_JoaoPauloQuinteiroGoncalvesda_M.pdf: 5149451 bytes, checksum: 0588a7078400ea1cbb54d59cc80777ae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: A escolha da estratégia de produção é uma das tarefas mais importantes para garantir o sucesso do desenvolvimento de campos de petróleo. Dentro deste contexto, destaca-se o recente uso de poços inteligentes, que são divididos em segmentos com dispositivos que, por sua vez, possibilitam o monitoramento e maior controle da produção, em tempo real. Embora o desempenho esperado desses poços seja superior aos convencionais, em termos de maximização de produção de óleo e minimização de produção de água, não há garantias de que essa vantagem represente um desempenho econômico superior, devido aos investimentos adicionais necessários. Trabalhos recentes vêm sendo feitos para a comparação desses dois tipos de poços. Contudo, observa-se que, em muitas dessas comparações, as estratégias com poços inteligentes são otimizadas com maior cuidado e, conseqüentemente, apresentam melhores resultados. Isto pode implicar falta de confiabilidade do processo. A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo criar uma metodologia de comparação justa entre poços inteligentes e convencionais. Foi desenvolvido um procedimento de otimização da estratégia de produção, aplicável aos dois tipos de poços, considerando inicialmente cenário determinístico. Esta metodologia conta também com a disponibilidade de plataformas com diferentes capacidades de produção. Foi ainda estudado o impacto de incertezas e heterogeneidades no processo. Ao final, realizou-se uma análise de decisão, considerando estratégias de poços convencionais e inteligentes, além da capacidade da plataforma, com o objetivo de direcionar a escolha do tomador de decisão. Procurou-se mostrar que a metodologia de otimização da estratégia é eficaz, no sentido de promover uma comparação criteriosa de ambos os poços estudados. Para o exemplo determinístico, de baixa heterogeneidade, as estratégias otimizadas, de poços convencionais e inteligentes, apresentaram poucas diferenças. Com a adição de incertezas e aumento da heterogeneidade, especialmente pelos canais de alta permeabilidade, os poços inteligentes passaram a apresentar vantagens. Foi mostrado ainda que as comparações entre esses dois tipos de poços resultam em diversas opções possíveis de serem aplicadas, com vantagens e desvantagens para os dois lados. A escolha depende de vários fatores; alguns desses fatores, principalmente características do caso e cenário econômico, podem ser considerados como parte do problema e devem ser tratados estatisticamente para a decisão do emprego ou não de poços inteligentes. Outros fatores são específicos para a tomada de decisão, tais como: objetivos da empresa, interesses particulares de cada projeto e aversão ao risco do tomador de decisão. A influência destes fatores no processo de otimização afeta também a decisão de utilizar ou não poços inteligentes / Abstract: The selection of a production strategy is one of the most important tasks to ensure success of petroleum fields development. In order to improve the performance of fields, the use of smart wells is becoming a common practice. In such wells, devices like valves and sensors are able to monitor and control the production in real time, adding flexibility to the operation. However, it is possible that the expected gain of these wells production does not pay off the required additional investments. Recent works compare smart and conventional wells but, generally, the smart wells strategies are optimized heeder, so that they have shown best results; this could yield lack of reliability to the process. The objective of this work is to develop a production optimization methodology allowing a fair comparison between smart and conventional wells. A methodology of production strategy optimization, which considers the availability of different production capacities, was developed and applied to both the conventional and smart wells. The methodology was applied to a slightly heterogeneous reservoir, considering a deterministic case. As a second step, the impact of uncertainties and heterogeneities on the optimized strategies was studied. Finally, a decision analysis was discussed, considering smart and conventional strategies and platform capacity. The main objective of the developed methodology was to provide reliability in the optimization process. In the deterministic example with low heterogeneity, the results showed small differences between the two alternatives. However, with the addition of uncertainties and with the increase of the heterogeneity, smart wells presented some advantages. It was shown, in the process to compare the two wells, that many possible strategies can be applied with advantages and disadvantages to both kind of wells. The differences are generally small and the choice depends on several factors. Some of this factor, especially the characteristic of the case and economic scenario, can be considered as a part of the problem and must be handling statistically. Other factors are specific of the decisionmaking process, such as: objectives of the company, particular interest of each project and risk aversion from the decision maker. The influence of these factors in the optimization process affects de decision to use or not smart wells / Mestrado / Reservatórios e Gestão / Mestre em Ciências e Engenharia de Petróleo