[pt] É princípio fundamental da Análise de Decisão que as previsões subjetivas utilizadas em uma análise devam ser baseadas na síntese de toda evidência disponível. Então, quando parte da evidência do tomador de decisão consiste de diversos modelos de previsão ou opiniões de especialistas, a Teoria da Decisão requer a formulação da combinação destes preditor. Este trabalho considera as metodologias Bayesianas Outperformance e Quase-Bayes, bem como o modelo clássico de Combinação Ótima , aplicação à combinação de previsões de preços médios de petróleo, geradas por especialistas da Petrobrás para diversos mercados internacionais. É apresentada uma descrição teórica das metodologias, seguida de uma análise comparativa entre os desempenhos das previsões individuais e das combinações, e estas entre si. / [en] It is a fundamental principle of the Decision Analysis that the subjective forecasts used in na analysis should be based upon a synthesis of all the available evidence. Thus, when part of the decision-maker s evidence is in the form of a variety of forecasting models, or expert opinions. Decision Theory requires him to formulate a combination of these predictors. This work takes into account the Bayesian methodologies Outperformance and Quasi-Bayes, as well as the classical model of Optimal Combination, all applied to the combination of petroleum medium prices, generated by experts fo Petrobrás, for several international markets. It is presents a theoretical description of the methodologies followed by a comparative analysis between performances of individual forecasts and combinations, and these among themselves.

With the rapid advancement of technologies, software is gaining its popularity in assisting our daily activities in the last decades. This circumstance causes a rising concerns about a software product with high quality which lead to a question about the justification whether a software product has high quality. Therefore, a numerous of researches and studies had spent a lot of effort in software product quality assessment in order to justify whether the software product(s) under study have satisfactory quality. One of the foremost approaches to assess software product quality is the application of the quality models. For example, quality model ISO 9126. However, the quality models do not provide an explicit way to aggregate the performance of different quality aspects nor handling the various interests raised from different perspective or stakeholders. Although many studies have been conducted to aggregate the different measures of quality attributes, they are still not capable to include the various interests raised by different software product stakeholders. Therefore, some studies have attempted to apply MCDA methods in order to aggregate the measure of quality attributes as the ultimate software product quality and handling the various quality interests. However, they do not provide any rational about their particular choice of MCDA methods. Most of them justify their choice by referring to high popularity of the selected MCDA method. Without studying the suitability of MCDA methods in the application domain of the software product, it is difficult to conclude whether the chosen MCDA methods fit in the intended software engineering discipline. Furthermore, there is no systematic approach available to help other software practitioners in selecting the MCDA method that will be suitable for their needs and constraints in software product quality assessment. This thesis aims to provide the key concepts for an effective selection of suitable MCDA method for the purpose of software product quality assessment. A foremost part of this thesis presents two systematic reviews. The first review illustrates the evaluation of the characteristics of MCDA methods. The second review identifies the major needs and constraints of the software quality assessment potential MCDA method has to consider in order to be used for assessing quality of software products. Based on the results from both systematic reviews, a selection framework named MCDA-SQA framework is formulated. This framework is intended to assist the software practitioners to systematically select and adapt appropriate MCDA method(s) in order to fulfil their quality assessment needs and the respective environmental concerns.

Health authority administrators were interviewed for their perspectives on what makes a good health care system; on tailored population-specific services as a way to address health inequities; and on how they perceive themselves to be making good funding decisions on the public’s behalf. The qualitative descriptive research dataset includes 24 hour-and-a-half long interviews with administrators from four BC health authorities, health region documents, memos, and field notes. Participants support the continuation of a public health care system and all participants acknowledge using tailored services as a route towards reducing health inequities. However, these identified services have not been evaluated for their overall effectiveness. When it comes to decision-making, participants describe using a series of governance and bioethical principles that help them frame what and how issues can be considered. Decision situations are framed in a way that informs them whether they need to use formal or informal processes. In both cases participants collect information that allows others to understand that they have made wise decisions. The Recognition-Primed Decision Model accurately reflects the intuitive processes that participants describe using during informal decision-making and portions of formal decision-making. However, in relation to formal decision situations, there is less alignment with existing Decision-Analysis literature. Seven practice and future research recommendations are provided: 1. Increase health authority participation in intersectoral partnerships that address non-medical determinants of health. 2. Develop new strategies for addressing health inequities. 3. Evaluate the efficacy of using tailored services beyond their ability to remove barriers to access. In addition, increase focus on testing new strategies for reducing the inequities gap. 4. Enhance existing decision-making processes by including the explicit review of decision tradeoffs, value weighting, and mechanisms for requesting revisions. 5. Focus future research on developing and evaluating the usefulness of formal decision-making tools in health authority structures and their relation to decision latitude. 6. Launch a longitudinal research study that examines how health authority expert decision-makers use judgmental heuristics and how they avoid the negative effects of bias. 7. Commission public dialogue on shifting the current illness-based system to one that is wellness based. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate

Within the last decade, wind power has faced a strong expansion in Sweden, supported by national policies. However, when wind power projects are to be developed, a series of legal difficulties, opposing land-use interests and resistance often arise, hindering their implementation on a local level. To bypass such difficulties, the Swedish government has invited municipalities to localise suitable areas for wind power development in their comprehensive plans. By adopting this proactive approach, different interests and views can be implemented in an early stage of the planning process, possibly reducing the risk of land-use issues and local resistance.The Municipality of Kiruna is currently updating its comprehensive plan and wind power is among the planning issues to be further investigated. Therefore, this thesis aims to combine GIS and multi-criteria decision making to support wind power spatial planning in Kiruna Municipality by exploring environmental, economic and social constraints and criteria under different planning scenariosTherefore, a spatial multi-criteria decision analysis is implemented to promote wind power localisation and at the same time, to prevent possible detrimental consequences. Swedish legislation, guidelines issued by national agencies and wind power planning practices are implemented to delimit areas feasible or unfeasible for wind power development. Then, the localisation process within feasible areas is guided by a set of social, economic and environmental criteria reflecting land-use interests typical of Kiruna Municipality. Weights, steering the relevance of the different criteria in the process, are then developed on the basis of three planning scenarios of future development for the Nordic Arctic.The results of the analysis show that approximately 90% of the territory of Kiruna Municipality is not feasible for wind power development. In particular, low wind speeds and areas of interest for defence are constraints excluding large portions of the municipal territory. Among the feasible areas, it is particularly complex to identify locations which are not located within areas of interest for reindeer herding or national interest for undisturbed mountainous environment and that have an adequate distance from existing electric grids. Nevertheless, the planning scenarios pinpoint suitable locations for wind power development in northeastern Kiruna, in proximity of Karesuando.

The main objective of my diploma thesis is multidimensional data analysis. Analyzed data come from the comparative research Město pro byznys 2013 (Eng. translation: The city for business 2013). Another goal is to propose some changes that could improve the project. Used methods for multidimensional data analysis are exploratory analysis, principal component analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis. Among others, for proposing some changes I use multi-criteria decision analysis.

Master´s thesis deals with the evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed flood protection measures in the affected area between the low Nové Mlýny reservoir and Pohansko weir at the Dyje river. The evaluation was done using the multicriteria decision analysis. The analysis was based on hydraulic calculations using 2D hydrodynamic model.

In organizations with decision makers across multiple hierarchical levels, conflicting objectives are commonly observed. The decision maker, or agent, at the highest level usually makes decisions in the interest of the organization, while a subordinate agent may have a conflict of interest between taking a course of action that is best for the organization and the course of action that is best for itself. The Multiscale Decision-Making (MSDM) model was established by Wernz (2008). The model has been developed to capture interactions in multi-agent systems, by integrating both the hierarchical and temporal scale of decisions made in organizations. This thesis contributes towards expanding the results in the hierarchical interaction domain of MSDM by extending the model to incorporate N decision alternatives and outcomes instead of two, and studying its effect on the interaction between agents. We consider decisions with uncertain outcomes, where the outcomes of the decisions made by agents lower in hierarchy affect the transition probabilities of the decisions made by agents above them in hierarchy. This leads to a game theoretic situation, where the lower-level agents need to be sufficiently incentivized in order to shift their best response strategy to one in the interest of their superior and the organization. Mathematical expressions for the optimal incentives at each hierarchical level are developed. We analyze systems with agents interacting across two and three organizational levels. We then study the effect of introducing the cost of taking an action on the optimal incentives. We discuss a health care application of MSDM. / Master of Science

Resource efficiency and circular economy (CE) has become increasingly relevant to the Swedish construction company NCC in connection to the plans of demolishing the current head office in Stockholm and building a new head office next to it. NCC wants to investigate how to minimize the negative sustainability implications of bringing down a commercial facility well before its life length has expired, through exploring the possibilities of integrating principles of CE in future planning‐and construction processes. This study seeks to understand how the Swedish construction company NCC could work with decision-making for CE in order to keep their materials in the loop. As the concept of CE is broad there are many options for working with its principles. However, the construction industry is relatively new to these and a list of priorities would therefore be helpful in such an initial phase, as focusing on all would be inefficient and rather daunting. Thus, this study suggests a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) as a tool for decision-making and prioritizing between various approaches to CE. Together with NCC, an MCDA was performed where three different options for working with CE were analysed (Waste as Resource, Circular Design and Circular Business Models). In a focus group, 17 criteria that were relevant to NCC were developed as a basis for analysing the options. These were then defined, scored and weighted to reveal a most preferable option. The MCDA showed that the most preferable approach to CE for NCC is working with circular design, i.e. Design for Deconstruction (DfD), followed closely by measures to increase the rate of reuse and recycling of already existing construction- and demolition waste. However, the sensitivity analysis revealed that if economic criteria received a higher weight, increased reuse and recycling is the most preferable option. MCDA was deemed a helpful decision-making tool for CE principles. While the scoring and weighting is subjective and it is challenging to quantify the criteria, the strength lies in bringing a new and innovative topic on the agenda by gathering key decision-makers in focus groups to discuss and learn. A preliminary study to this thesis was conducted at NCC (Tabrizi, 2015) with the aim of conducting a survey of good examples with regard to development of commercial properties that are designed for flexibility and deconstruction during refurbishment and end‐of‐life. It showed that the challenges relate to the hesitant perception of secondary material, design and construction limitations, the need for material documentation, organization and logistics as well as creating sustainable business models. Key success factors for overcoming these challenges for NCC is working towards better communication and promotion of secondary material through information sharing, building up a knowledge base and internal targets, as well as establishing a consistent work methodology for DfD in order to move NCC towards a circular economy.

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Sustainability within automotive industry has been an important topic that is covered in several studies. Due to the multi-aspect nature of sustainability and the variety of the factors need to be taken in consideration when choosing a material, the decision-making process could be challenging. This study focuses on lubricants within the automotive industry and proposes a framework consisted of three milestones that aspire to assist automotive manufacturers in sustainable lubricant selection. The study uses LCA as an environmental assessment tool for fully formulated lubricants and multicriteria decision matrix to include other criteria indicators in the decision-making process quantitively. The study also contributes to the literature by performing LCA for fully formulated lubricants. The framework was applied on well-established case company within the automotive industry (Volvo Cars Corporation) in Sweden. The results showthe importance and significant impacts of the inclusion of the additives in LCA studies done on lubricants using CV joint grease as a case study. It also shows the effect of the organisational preferences on the final results of the framework.