Thesis (Ph. D. in Interdisciplinary Studies: Civil and Environmental Engineering)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2009. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2007. / "Graduate Program in Industrial and Systems Engineering." Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-224).

Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Choi, Seung-Kyum; Committee Member: Allen, Janet K.; Committee Member: Paredis, Chris. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Orientador: Valério Antonio Pamplona Salomon / Banca: Fernando Augusto Marins / Banca: Mischel Carmen Neyra Belderrain / Resumo: Em muitos aspectos a gestão de instituições de educação é similar à gestão de organizações de negócios, ambas buscam a redução dos custos e a melhoria da qualidade dos serviços. Em condições de turbulência, organizações podem realizar mudanças internas para lidar com o ambiente externo. A empregabilidade apresenta-se como um fator de análise em diversas organizações inclusive instituições de educação. Este trabalho tem por objetivo propor uma abordagem para analisar a empregabilidade dos instrutores de uma empresa de educação profissional. O trabalho apresenta abordagem qualitativa, sendo um estudo de caso, sendo realizada análise de 10 funcionários por meio dos critérios formação, tempo de empresa, polivalência, salário, cursos estratégicos, índice de desempenho e experiência diversificada. Os resultados serviram de base para gerar uma alternativa para o problema. Foi verificado que os empregados E3, E8 e E5 devem tomar medidas para melhorar o desempenho. O trabalho contempla uma análise de ranque reverso entre as alternativas e uma análise de sensibilidade / Abstract: In many aspects, the management of educational institutions is similar to business management. Both of them look for costs savings and quality of service improvements. Employability is currently a top subject of research in the education, especially in Professional Education. The purpose of this study is to propose an approach to analyze the employability of the instructors of a professional education company. This paper is a case study that analyzes the employability of 10 employees through the criteria education, time in company, multiskilling, salary, key courses, performance and experience. The results are that employees E3, E8 and E5 should take measures to improve their performance, a rank reverse analysis was also performed among the alternatives and a sensitivity analyses as well / Mestre

The goal of this work was to evaluate the order of student accounts in terms of advantegousness, which are offered by banks on the domestic banking market. Not only theoretically, but also using quantitative methods. Firstly, the current offer of students products on the domestic market was explored, then a survey among some students was made in order to determine which student accounts are the most favourite ones, most commonly used and why. By using methods multiple-criteria evaluation of alternatives clients can make an easier decision when choosing from a large number of specified criteria. Afterwards, an appropriate evaluation criteria were fixed and evaluated in terms of profitability of individual alternatives by using methods of multiple criteria evaluation. For all analysed students, the account called - U konto pro mladé from UniCredit Bank was clearly selected as the best one. On the contrary account FRESH from Česká spořitelna appeared to be the mist disadvantageous one. According to the questionnaire, this account is owned by the majority of young respondents.

The diploma thesis is focused on using methods of multiple criteria decision making, in this case about business accounts. In theoretical part is described the banking systém of Czech republic, then methods of multiple criteria evaluation.The basic aim of this work was to evaluate the order of business accounts in terms of advantageousness, which are offered by banks on the banking market in the Czech republic. The sectional aim of this work is to get known with the problems of optimal choice of business accounts for a certain group of consumers, which in this case are small businesses. Before choosing a new business account it is always necessary to carefully explore banking market and its offers of business accounts. The important part of this thesis is that the certain client has to consider his preferences before we use quantitative methods. In this diploma thesis has also done a survey about the evaluation of business accounts. Then there are compared results of using methods of multiple criteria evaluation of the survey and model client. In conclusion, the results are described in the order of banking products from the best to the worst business account.

Les grilles de calcul et le “cloud computing” permettent de distribuer un ensemble de ressources informatiques, telles que du stockage ou du temps de calcul, à un ensemble d’utilisateurs en fonction de leurs demandes en donnant l’illusion de ressources infinies. Cependant, lorsque l’ensemble de ces ressources est insuffisant pour satisfaire les exigences des utilisateurs, des conflits d’intérêts surgissent. Ainsi, un libre accès à des ressources limitées peut entraîner une utilisation inefficace qui pénalise l’ensemble des participants. Dans de tels environnements, il devient nécessaire d’établir des procédures d’arbitrage afin de résoudre ces conflits en garantissant une distribution équitable aux différents utilisateurs. Nous présentons une nouvelle classe de problèmes : celle des ordonnancements multi-utilisateurs. Cette thèse aborde la notion d’équité au travers de problèmes d’allocation de ressources sous incertitudes et d’ordonnancement de tâches périodiques. / Grid and Cloud computing make possible the sharing of computer system resources, such as storage or computation time, among a set of users, according to their requests, thereby creating an illusion of infinite resources. However, as soon as those resources are insufficient to meet users’s expectations, conflicts of interest arise. Therefore, unlimited access to limited resources may lead to inefficient usage which penalizes the whole set of users. In such environments, arbitration becomes necessary in order to settle those conflicts and ensure a fair allocation to all users. We present two classes of problems : multi-user resource allocation under uncertainty and multi-user periodic task scheduling. We tackle these problems from the point of view of fairness.

Submitted by HYGOR EVANGELISTA SIQUEIRA null (hygorsiqueira@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-02-19T01:23:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Hygor_Evangelista Siqueira.pdf: 4249598 bytes, checksum: ad19b53ebd27b8f49ff21f3b8da791e9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-02-19T18:32:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 siqueira_he_me_jabo.pdf: 4249598 bytes, checksum: ad19b53ebd27b8f49ff21f3b8da791e9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-19T18:32:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 siqueira_he_me_jabo.pdf: 4249598 bytes, checksum: ad19b53ebd27b8f49ff21f3b8da791e9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A incidência de acidentes que ocorrem no transporte rodoviário de produtos perigosos (TRPP) tem sido motivo de preocupação quanto aos riscos de contaminação do solo e da água, com possíveis reflexos na saúde e ao meio ambiente. Objetivou-se neste trabalho verificar a vulnerabilidade ambiental dos recursos hídricos na Área de Proteção Ambiental do rio Uberaba (APA) e na área de de influência das rodovias. A condição de risco e fragilidade que o ambiente se encontra foi determinado utilizando a modelagem multicritério de parâmetros morfométricos e de ocupação do solo, e a análise dos dados foi realizada em plataforma de sistema de informação geográfica (SIG). Os fatores intervenientes selecionados para análise foram: densidade de drenagem, declive, classes de solos, distância das linhas de água e o uso e ocupação dos solos. Foi possível avaliar de forma conjunta os diferentes planos de informação e gerar a partir do multicritério a vulnerabilidade dos recursos hídricos interceptados por rodovias na APA. Os fatores declividade do terreno e classe de solo são os mais importantes no diagnóstico de áreas com maior vulnerabilidade ambiental. / The incidence of accidents occurring in the transport of dangerous goods (TDG) is a concern about the risks of soil and water contamination, with possible impacts on health and the environment. The aim of this work is to verify the environmental vulnerability of water resources and in the area of influence of the State highway at the Environmental Protection Area (APA) of the Uberaba River Watershed. The condition of risk and fragility that the environment is nowdays was determined using the multi-criteria modeling of the morphometric parameters and land use, and the data analysis was carried out in a geographic information system platform (GIS). The intervening factors selected for analysis were: drainage density, slope, soil classes, distance from the drainage net and the land use. It was possible to evaluate jointly the different plans and generate information from multiple criteria vulnerability of water resources intercepted by road at the APA. The factors slope and soil type are the most important to located the greater environmental vulnerability areas.

L’Aide Multicritère à la Décision (AMCD) vise à aider un décideur (DM) confronté à un problème de décision impliquant plusieurs objectifs contradictoires. Les préférences du DM jouent un rôle important au sein du processus d'aide à la décision, puisque les recommandations ne sont pertinentes et acceptables que si le système de valeurs du DM est pris en considération. Un outil d'élicitation des préférences est donc nécessaire pour aider l'analyste à intégrer les préférences du DM de façon appropriée dans les modèles de décision. Nous sommes intéressés par le développement d’outils d'élicitation des préférences pour deux modèles d'agrégation basés sur des points de référence à savoir Electre Tri et une méthode de Rangement basé sur des Points de Référence multiples (RPM). Tout d'abord, nous considérons Electre Tri en utilisant la règle d’affectation optimiste. Nous proposons un outil d'élicitation des préférences, qui infère les paramètres de préférence de ce modèle à partir d’exemples d’affectation du DM, et analyse également la robustesse des affectations résultant de la nature imprécise de l'information préférentiel. En second lieu, un outil d'élicitation des préférences est développé pour le problème de sélection de portefeuille formulée comme des problèmes de tri contraint en utilisant Electre Tri. Les préférences du DM à la fois au niveau individuel et au niveau du portefeuille sont considérés pour infère le modèle Electre Tri. Le modèle élicité évalue intrinsèquement les individus et sélectionne simultanément un portefeuille satisfaisant comme un groupe. Troisièmement, nous nous intéressons à l’élicitation des préférences pour le modèle RPM, qui détermine un pré-ordre comparant des alternatives avec des points de référence. Nous proposons un outil qui infère un modèle RPM parcimonieux à partir de comparaisons par paires du DM. Enfin, trois web services implémentent des outils d'élicitation des préférences pour Electre Tri et ont été intégrées au logiciel de Decision Deck. Les outils d’élicitation des préférences proposés consistent en des algorithmes qui résolvent des programmes linéaires en nombres mixtes. Des expériences numériques approfondies ont été réalisées pour étudier la performance et le comportement des outils d'élicitation proposées. Ces expériences éclairent sur l’applicabilité pratique de ces outils. De plus, les outils ont été appliqués avec succès à trois cas. / Multiple Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) aims at supporting decision makers (DM) facing decisions involving several conflicting objectives. DM's preferences play a key role in the decision aiding process, since the recommendations are meaningful and acceptable only if the DM's values are taken into consideration. A preference elicitation tool is therefore necessary to help the analyst to incorporate appropriately the DM's preferences in the decision models. We are interested in developing preference elicitation tools for two aggregation models based on reference points, namely Electre Tri and a new Ranking method based on Multiple reference Points (RMP). Firstly, we consider Electre Tri using the optimistic assignment rule. We propose a preference elicitation tool which elicits the preference parameters of the model from assignment examples provided by the DM, and also analyzes the robustness of the assignments related to the imprecise nature of the preference information. Secondly, a preference elicitation tool is developed for portfolio selection problems. These problems are formulated as constrained sorting problems using Electre Tri. The DM's preferences both at the individual and portfolio level are considered to elicit the Electre Tri model. The elicited model evaluates intrinsically the individuals and simultaneously selects a satisfactory portfolio as a group. Thirdly, we are interested in preference elicitation for RMP model, which determines a weak order by comparing alternatives with reference points. A preference elicitation tool is provided which infers a parsimonious RMP model from the DM's pairwise comparisons. Lastly, three web services implementing the preference elicitation tools for Electre Tri have been developed and integrated to Decision Deck software. The proposed preference elicitation tools consist of algorithms solving mixed integer programs. Extensive numerical experiments have been performed to study the performance and behavior of the proposed elicitation tools to give insights into their applicability in practice. Moreover, the tools have been successfully applied to three real-world cases.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Master's Degree in Information and Communication Technology, Durban, University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2017. / This dissertation reports on the development of an algorithm based on an existing matchmaking method to solve diverse decision problems in a multi-person environment. The capacity to effectively achieve a lucrative and accurate decision making is a critical aspect of resource management. But the accuracy of a decision making process can be highly compromised because of the high subjectivity and multiple conflicting attributes that are present in human judgement. multi-person decision making is an effective approach for achieving a lucrative and accurate decision making process. The multi-person decision process has proven to be tedious mainly because the existing multi-person decision making methods are extensions of single decision making methods. This imposes additional computational resources, especially for a large number of decision makers because they aggregate the preferences of several decision makers into a unified format.This work therefore seeks to improve the multi-person decision making process using a matchmaking approach. In doing so, the Hunt ForTune matchmaking algorithm was investigated and improved for this purpose. Thus, the preferences of decision makers for each attribute are collected as an attribute description vector. The attribute, its description vector, flexibility and priority vector are compactly represented as a 4-tuple profile. The improved Hunt ForTune matchmaking algorithm is applied to different sets of multi-person decision problems and offered as an effective way of enhancing decision accuracy. The improved matchmaking decision algorithm is compared with a novel mathematical technique of Hausdorff distance. Results generally show that multi-person matchmaking algorithm is suitable and efficient for diverse decision making in the presence of multiple decision makers. The practical implication of the proposed multi-person matchmaking algorithm for decision making is that it provides a less complicated way to capture and represent the preferences of multiple decision makers irrespective of decision domain. The originality of the work reported in this dissertation is built on a matchmaking algorithm by introducing effective profile representation using vector analysis approach to capture the preferences of multiple decision makers and similarity metrics to provide an efficient and robust way to accurately perform a multi-person decision process. / M