New Zealand faces a range of food safety hazards. Microbial hazards alone were estimated to cause over 2,000 years of lost healthy life in 2011 (Cressey, 2012) and $62m in medical costs and lost productivity in 2009 (Gadiel & Abelson, 2010). Chemical hazards are thought to be well managed through existing controls (Vannoort & Thomson, 2009) whereas microbial hazards are considered harder to control, primarily due to their ability to reproduce along the food production chain. Microbial hazards are thought to cause the majority of acute foodborne gastroenteritis. This research reviewed food safety literature and official documentation, and conducted 55 interviews, mostly with food safety experts from different stakeholder groups, to examine the food safety decision-making environment in New Zealand. This research explores the concept of the ‘stakeholder’ in the context of food safety decision-making and proposes an inclusive ‘stakeholder’ definition as any group which is able to affect, or be affected by, the decision-making process. Utilising this definition, and guided by interviews, New Zealand stakeholders in food safety decision-making were identified and classified as follows: •Regulators •Public health authorities •Food safety scientists/academics •Consumers •Māori •Food Businesses (further classified as): o Farmers o Processors o Food retailers o Exporters Interviews with stakeholders from these groups highlighted twelve criteria as being relevant to multiple groups during food safety intervention evaluation: •Effectiveness •Financial cost •Market Access •Consumer Perceptions •Ease of Implementation •Quality or Suitability •Quality of Science •Equity of Costs •Equity of Benefits •Workplace Safety •Cultural Impact •Animal Welfare There are a number of different ways to measure or assess performance on these criteria. Some are able to be quantitatively measured, while others may require the use of value judgements. This thesis used the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) metric for quantifying effectiveness during the testing of different MCDA models. This thesis reviews the MCDA process and the food safety specific MCDA literature. There are different ways of conducting MCDA. In particular, there are a large number of models available for the aggregation phase; the process of converting model inputs, in the form of criteria scores and weights, into model recommendations. This thesis has described and reviewed the main classes of model. The literature review and interview process guided the construction and testing of three classes of MCDA model; the Weighted Sum, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and PROMETHEE models. These models were selected due to their having different characteristics and degrees of complexity, as well as their popularity in the food safety and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) literature. Models were tested on the problem of selecting the most appropriate intervention to address the historic Campylobacter in poultry problem in New Zealand during the mid-2000s. Experimentation was conducted on these models to explore how different configurations utilise data and produce model outputs. This experimentation included: •Varying the format of input data •Exploring the effects of including/excluding criteria •Methods for sensitivity analysis •Exploring how data inputs and outputs can be elicited and presented using visual tools • Creating and using hybrid MCDA models The results of this testing are a key output of this thesis and provide insight into how such models might be used in food safety decision-making. The conclusions reached throughout this research phase can be classified into one of two broad groups: •Those relating to MCDA as a holistic process/methodology for decision-making •Those relating to the specific models and mathematical procedures for generating numerical inputs and outputs This thesis demonstrates that food-safety decision-making is a true multi-criteria, multi-stakeholder problem. The different stakeholders in food-safety decision-making do not always agree on the value and importance of the attributes used to evaluate competing intervention schemes. MCDA is well suited to cope with such complexity as it provides a structured methodology for the systematic and explicit identification, recording and aggregation of qualitative and quantitative information, gathered from a number of different sources, with the output able to serve as a basis for decision-making. The MCDA models studied in this thesis range from models that are simple and quick to construct and use, to more time consuming models with sophisticated algorithms. The type of model used for MCDA, the way these models are configured and the way inputs are generated or elicited can have a significant impact on the results of an analysis. This thesis has identified a number of key methodological considerations for those looking to employ one of the many available MCDA models. These considerations include: •Whether a model can accommodate the type and format of input data •The desired degree of compensation between criteria (i.e. full, partial or no compensation) •Whether the goal of an analysis is the identification of a ‘best’ option(s), or the facilitation of discussion, and communication of data •The degree of transparency required from a model and whether an easily understood audit trail is desired/required •The desired output of a model (e.g. complete or partial ranking). This thesis has also identified a number of practical considerations when selecting which model to use in food safety decision-making. These include: •The amount of time and energy required of stakeholders in the generation of data inputs (elicitation burden) •The degree of training required for participants •How data inputs are to be elicited and aggregated in different group decision-making environments •The availability of MCDA software for assisting an analysis Considering the above points will assist users in selecting a suitable MCDA model that meets their requirements and constraints. This thesis provides original and practical knowledge to assist groups or individuals looking to employ MCDA in the context of food-safety intervention decision-making. This research could also serve as a guide for those looking to evaluate a different selection of MCDA models.

Cloud computing is an emerging trend where clients are billed for services on a pay-per-use basis. Service level agreements define the formal negotiations between the clients and the service providers on common metrics such as processing power, memory and bandwidth. In the case of service level agreement violations, the service provider is penalised. From service provider's point of view, providing cloud services efficiently within the negotiated metrics is an important problem. Particularly, in large-scale data center settings, manual administration for resource allocation is not a feasible option. Service providers aim to maximize resource utilization in the data center, as well as, avoiding service level agreement violations. On the other hand, from the client's point of view, the cloud must continuously ensure enough resources to the changing workloads of hosted application environments and services. Therefore, an autonomous cloud manager that is capable of dynamically allocating resources in order to satisfy both the client and the service provider's requirements emerges as a necessity. In this thesis, we focus on the autonomous resource allocation in cloud computing environments. A distributed resource consolidation manager for clouds, called IMPROMPTU, was introduced in our previous studies. IMPROMPTU adopts a threshold based reactive design where each unique physical machine is coupled with an autonomous node agent that manages resource consolidation independently from the rest of the autonomous node agents. In our previous studies, IMPROMPTU demonstrated the viability of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) to provide resource consolidation management that simultaneously achieves lower numbers of reconfiguration events and service level agreement violations under the management of three well-known outranking-based methods called PROMETHEE II, ELECTRE III and PAMSSEM II. The interesting question of whether more efficient single synthesizing criterion and outranking based MCDA methods exist was left open for research. This thesis addresses these limitations by analysing the capabilities of IMPROMPTU using a comprehensive set of single synthesizing criterion and outranking based MCDA methods in the context of dynamic resource allocation. The performances of PROMETHEE II, ELECTRE III, PAMSSEM II, REGIME, ORESTE, QUALIFEX, AHP and SMART are investigated by in-depth analysis of simulation results. Most importantly, the question of what denotes the properties of good MCDA methods for this problem domain is answered. / Graduate / 0984

Community benefit schemes in the context of wind power are increasingly provisioned by developers as a means of generating local socio-economic and environmental value, fostering social relations and strengthening acceptance. Determining an appropriate and effective benefit scheme can prove challenging, given the variation of exposed stakeholders, diversity in schemes and the lack of decision making guidance. A multi-criteria decision aid framework for identifying the most appropriate scheme(s) for a hypothetical wind power project is developed. The framework is based on AHP and PROMETHEE II decision support tool, where six (6) alternative schemes are assessed using the preferences of five (5) stakeholders and their relevant criteria. The framework was applied to a fictitious development on the island of Gotland. Results from the applied example indicate that the most locally suited outcome was the ownership based models. It is anticipated that the methodological framework can help identify the scheme(s) that respond to the needs and preferences of the locality. Moreover, a decision making platform of this nature can provide practical support to developers, communities and local authorities, and contribute to a more effective and efficient development and negotiation process surrounding community benefit schemes.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-06T11:56:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FÁBIO OLIVEIRA GUERRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PROFIAP-CCJS) 2016.pdf: 2141167 bytes, checksum: 3488498c9c113a0a40ee95cac549220d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-06T11:56:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FÁBIO OLIVEIRA GUERRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PROFIAP-CCJS) 2016.pdf: 2141167 bytes, checksum: 3488498c9c113a0a40ee95cac549220d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-11 / A busca pela eficiência é considerada um ideal para a administração moderna, seja ela pública ou privada. Fazer mais com menos se torna imperativo principalmente nos tempos de crise. Sabe-se que a municipalidade possui papel preponderante no que concerne as relações Estado X Sociedade, em especial no que diz respeito à gestão pública e otimização dos recursos disponíveis. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar a eficiência fiscal dos municípios da Região Metropolitana de João Pessoa - PB. Em termos metodológicos, quanto a natureza classifica-se em pesquisa aplicada, quanto aos objetivos em descritiva e exploratória, quanto aos procedimentos bibliográfica ex-post facto e quanto a abordagem do problema é de natureza quali-quantitativa. Foram investigados os 12 municípios da Região Metropolitana de João Pessoa no ano de 2015, em razão da importância regional e da disponibilidade de dados, sendo coletadas informações acerca de 20 indicadores referenciados pela literatura. Em função da indisponibilidade de alguns dados, foram imputados 7 variáveis de um total 198. Foi elaborando um ranking dos municípios utilizando-se do método PROMETHEE II. Como resultado, identificou-se que os municípios melhores colocados foram os de maior PIB per capita, a exceção do município de Caaporã, carecendo de uma maior investigação este fenômeno. O estudo explicita a necessidade do acompanhamento sistemático das gestões públicas e de suas ações através dos indicadores, como forma de se alcançar uma gestão fiscal eficiente. / The search for efficiency is considered an ideal for modern administration, be it public or private. Doing more with less becomes imperative especially in times of economic crisis. It is also known that the municipality has leading role regarding the relationship State X Society, particularly with regard to public management and optimization of available resources. This study aims to evaluate the tax efficiency of the Metropolitan Region of João Pessoa- PB. In methodological terms, the nature is classified in applied research, as the objectives in descriptive and exploratory, as the literature ex-post facto procedures and how to approach the problem is quali-quantitative nature. We investigated the 12 municipalities in the metropolitan region of João Pessoa in 2015, due to the regional importance and availability of data, collected information about 20 indicators referenced in the literature. Due to the unavailability of some data were imputed 7 variables of a total 198. It was developing a ranking of municipalities using the PROMETHEE II method. As a result, it was found that the best placed municipalities had the highest GDP per capita, except for the municipality of Caaporã, lacking further research this phenomenon. The study explains the need for systematic monitoring of public administrations and their actions through the indicators, in order to achieve an efficient fiscal management.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-11T12:41:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 VICTOR VIDAL NEGREIROS BEZERRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PROFIAP-CCJS) 2016.pdf: 3966281 bytes, checksum: 545852b43a64e3cdd977c00aa9db9066 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-11T12:41:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 VICTOR VIDAL NEGREIROS BEZERRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PROFIAP-CCJS) 2016.pdf: 3966281 bytes, checksum: 545852b43a64e3cdd977c00aa9db9066 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-19 / A avaliação de desempenho no contexto municipal tem se apresentado como uma importante ferramenta para o desenvolvimento e melhoria da gestão pública nesse nível federativo. Apesar disso, as avaliações do desempenho municipal têm se fundamentado em metodologias onde somente poucos critérios avaliativos são considerados e processados. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo buscou cooperar no desenvolvimento e aprimoramento de avalições de desempenho municipal através das técnicas multicritério de apoio a decisão. Tomando como base os indicadores de gasto per capita nas 28 funções de governo, este estudo teve como objetivo aplicar uma metodologia multicritério de avaliação de desempenho para medir a performance de 12 municípios do estado da Paraíba. Através da aplicação do método multicritério PROMETHEE II, foi possível identificar a aplicabilidade desse tipo de metodologia no contexto da avaliação de desempenho de municípios. A análise estatística dos dados obtidos para os anos de 2014 e 2015 mostram que algumas áreas de atuação governamental, a exemplo de Saneamento, Segurança Pública e Gestão Ambiental tem recebido menor ênfase na aplicação de recursos públicos, enquanto que áreas como Administração, Saúde e Educação tem recebido maior destaque na alocação desses recursos. Já na aplicação do método multicritério PROMETHEE II, foi possível identificar rankings de desempenho capazes de verificar e comparar de forma global a performance dos municípios estudados. / The performance measurement in the municipal context has emerged as an important tool for the development and improvement of public administration in a federal level. Nevertheless, assessments of municipal performance have been based on methodologies where only a few evaluative criteria are considered and processed. In this sense, this study sought to cooperate in the development and improvement of municipal performance measurement through Multi-Criteria Decision Aiding Techniques. Based on the per capita spending indicators in 28 functions of government, this study aimed to apply a multi-criteria methodology of performance evaluation to measure the performance of 12 municipalities in the state of Paraiba. By applying the multi-criteria method PROMETHEE II, it was possible to identify the applicability of this type of methodology in assessing the performance of municipalities. The statistical analysis of the data for the years 2014 and 2015 show that some areas of government action, such as Sanitation, Public Safety and Environmental Management have received less emphasis in the use of public funds, while areas such as administration, health and education have received the most attention in the allocation of these resources. In the application of the multi-criteria method PROMETHEE II, it was possible to identify performance rankings that were able to check and compare globally the performance of the studied municipalities.

PROMETHEE II is a widely used outranking method in the field of multi criteria decision aid (MCDA) method. The method outputs a ranking of a considered set of alternatives, based on the computation of net flow scores. <p>In this thesis, aggregating several published journal articles and conference papers, we propose three contributions that relate to the method: 1) Outranking methods are based on the pairwise comparison of all considered alternatives, yielding a quadratic time complexity for evaluating the net flow scores. We propose a method for reducing to a linear time complexity and show that it offers good results; 2) Determining preference parameters, i.e. relative weights for each criterion, is not a trivial task. We propose two complementary approaches to eliciting preferences, based on the aggregation-disaggregation paradigm; 3) The phenomenon of rank reversal, that also affects the PROMETHEE II method, is often considered as problematic in the MCDA community. We formalise the exact conditions for rank reversal to occur with PROMETHEE II when adding or removing one or more alternatives to the original set. These conditions lead to the exact bound of rank reversal, a way to determine the actions that actually provoke rank reversal and two associated metrics that should be useful for concrete applications. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Submitted by Caroline Falcao (caroline.rfalcao@ufpe.br) on 2017-06-01T17:06:11Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Jonatas Almeida TESE.pdf: 764105 bytes, checksum: fee60ad6af056a3b2687f228a7683e2c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T17:06:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Jonatas Almeida TESE.pdf: 764105 bytes, checksum: fee60ad6af056a3b2687f228a7683e2c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-06-12 / Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia para a seleção de portfólios de sistemas de informação que integra a visão estratégica da organização ao planejamento de SI. O método multicritério PROMETHEE V possui uma abordagem voltada para seleção de portfólios, porém possui problemas devido às suas transformações de escala, distorcendo o resultado. Foi testado então um modelo que utiliza o conceito de portfólios c-ótimos, para eliminar tais distorções devido a mudanças de escalas. O modelo baseado no PROMETHEE V com conceitos de portfólios c-ótimos foi aplicado a um problema realístico, sendo realizada também uma análise de robustez sobre o resultado. Foram verificadas, porém, distorções oriundas do próprio método PROMETHEE V. Uma análise aprofundada do método mostrou uma fonte destas distorções, oferecendo uma prova matemática da inadequação do PROMETHEE V. Um novo modelo foi proposto, como alternativa que utiliza a racionalidade não-compensatória do PROMETHEE sem apresentar as distorções verificadas no PROMETHEE V, para encontrar a solução do problema. O novo modelo aplica o método PROMETHEE II sobre os portfólios ao invés de projetos, para isto foi utilizado um procedimento de geração de portfólios de fronteira descrito na literatura, realizando sobre este procedimento uma adaptação que aumenta a sua eficiência. O novo modelo proposto foi aplicado a problemas simulados, sendo feita uma comparação que mostra que sua recomendação supera e podendo inclusive dominar a recomendação do modelo com PROMETHEE V. / This work presents a methodology for selection of information system portfolios that integrates the strategic view of the organization to the IS planning. The multi-criteria method PROMETHEE V has an aproach that aims the portfolio selection, but it has problems due to its changes in scale that distorts the result. A model that uses the concept of c-optimo portfolios has been tested then, in order to eliminate these distortions caused by changes in scale. The PROMETHEE V with the c-optimo portfolio concept has been used in a realistic problem, an analysis of robustness has also been done. However, distortions from the PROMETHEE V method have been verified. A deep analysis of the method has showed a source of these distortions, offering a mathematical proof of the PROMETHEE V inadequacy. A new model has been proposed as an alternative that uses the non compensatory rationality of the PROMETHEE, without presenting the distortions verified on the PROMETHEE V, in order to find solutions to the problem. The new model applies the PROMETHEE II methodon the portfolios instead on the projects. With this aim, was used a boundary portfolio generation procedure, described in literature, changing this procedure to increase its efficiency. The new model proposed was applied to simulated problems, and in a comparison of results, its recommendation was better and even dominates the PROMETHEE V recommendation.

For a little less than twenty years, researchers have worked on integrating Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA). Several contributions have been done by integrating DEA with different MCDA methods to bring this field to what it is today. After studying the course of Multi-Criteria Data Envelopment Analysis (MCDEA) integration through numerous works, the future of such an attempt can be questionable. For this aim, the PROMETHEE method in MCDA has been integrated with DEA. To the best of our knowledge, this synergy has been done for the first time in this thesis.Two synergies have been conducted: Using PROMETHEE in DEA and vice versa. The first contribution applies PROMETHEE in DEA to develop a new weight restricted DEA model. This new model has two main characteristics: more discrimination power between efficient units and engaging a priori information of decision makers in DEA. The second contribution uses both DEA and PROMETHEE to propose a new ranking technique. DEA is employed to generate a pairwise comparison matrix to be used in PROMETHEE for the purpose of ranking alternatives. The last contribution uses DEA in PROMETHEE. It presents a new algorithm to propose weights in the context of the PROMETHEE II method based on DEA. Furthermore, these two methods can be used in parallel. Comparing the results obtained from DEA and PROMETHEE in evaluating the performance of units enriches the analysis of decision-making problem by confirming the robustness of answers. The purpose of this integration is to provide some tools to help decision makers in the process of evaluating the performance of alternatives and analyzing the multicriteria decision-making problems. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

For a little over twenty years, researchers have worked on integrating multi-criteria aggregation procedures (MCAP) to GIS. Several notable contributions have brought this field to what it is today. After studying the course of MCDA-GIS integration through several works, we question the future of such an attempt. Indeed most works that aim for an integration do not survive long after their direct purpose has been fulfilled. We end up understanding through a critical review of the existing systems that technical integration means nothing if it is not visible to the user on an operational level.<p><p>We therefore propose several contributions to improve the usability of MCDA methods in a geographic context. One of our works consists in adapting the PROMETHEE-GAIA methodology to be used on maps for spatially referenced problems. To do so, we define symbols/glyphs that display select parts of the results obtained through the PROMETHEE and GAIA methods. This allows for the comparison of alternatives' profiles and characteristics based on their geographic location which wasn't possible before. This adaptation helps us combine multicriteria and geographic aspects in an entirely new way.<p>We also propose some extensions of the GAIA method to improve the quality of the results and reduce the risk of wrong interpretations to be made due to losses of data. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Diploma thesis deals with analysis of energy resources. The aim is to map the potential of renewable resources in the Czech Republic and through multicriteria decision making to assess the potential investment options in renewable energy in the Czech Republic.