Etiqueta: multicriteria decision-making

Técnicas de decisión multicriterio para la educación de ingenieros en sostenibilidad

ABSTRACT

In recent times, a great deal of interest has emerged from different sectors of society towards sustainability and sustainable product design. Decision makers are increasingly encouraged to take into consideration the economic, environmental and social dimensions of reality when dealing with problems. Sustainability is of particular importance in the field of civil engineering, where structures are designed that are long lasting and shall cause significant impacts over a long period of time, such as bridges or dams. Consequently, when addressing a structural design, civil engineers shall account for the three dimensions of sustainability, which usually show conflicting perspectives. Multi-criteria methods allow the inclusion of non-monetary aspects into the design process of infrastructure. In the postgraduate course ‘Predictive and optimisation models for concrete structures’, offered at the Masters in Concrete Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de València, civil engineering students are taught how to apply such tools within the framework of sustainable design of concrete structures. The present paper conducts a state-of-the-art review of the main multi-criteria decision making methodologies taught in the course in the context of sustainability. Articles are searched in recognized databases, such as SCOPUS and Web of Science. The most significant methods, such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality (ELECTRE), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) or Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) are systematically discussed, identifying the actual trends concerning the use of such methodologies in the field of civil engineering. The review provides a deep insight in the multi criteria techniques that are most frequently used when assessing sustainability of infrastructure designs.

KEYWORDS

Postgraduate education; multi-criteria decision making; sustainability; structural design; state of the art review

REFERENCE

NAVARRO, I.; MARTÍ, J.V.; YEPES, V. (2018). Multi-criteria decision making techniques in civil engineering education for sustainability. Proceedings of ICERI2018,the 11th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Seville (Spain), 12th-14th November 2018, pp. 9798-9807.  ISBN: 978-84-09-05948-5

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Special Issue “Optimization for Decision Making”

 

 

 

 

 

Mathematics (ISSN 2227-7390) is a peer-reviewed open access journal which provides an advanced forum for studies related to mathematics, and is published monthly online by MDPI.

 

 

Special Issue “Optimization for Decision Making”

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2019

Special Issue Editors

Guest Editor 

Prof. Víctor Yepes
Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Website | E-Mail
Interests: multiobjective optimization; structures optimization; lifecycle assessment; social sustainability of infrastructures; reliability-based maintenance optimization; optimization and decision-making under uncertainty

Guest Editor 

Prof. José M. Moreno-Jiménez
Universidad de Zaragoza
Website | E-Mail
Interests: multicriteria decision making; environmental selection; strategic planning; knowledge management; evaluation of systems; logistics and public decision making (e-government, e-participation, e-democracy and e-cognocracy)

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the current context of the electronic governance of society, both administrations and citizens are demanding greater participation of all the actors involved in the decision-making process relative to the governance of society. In addition, the design, planning, and operations management rely on mathematical models, the complexity of which depends on the detail of models and complexity/characteristics of the problem they represent. Unfortunately, decision-making by humans is often suboptimal in ways that can be reliably predicted. Furthermore, the process industry seeks not only to minimize cost, but also to minimize adverse environmental and social impacts. On the other hand, in order to give an appropriate response to the new challenges raised, the decision-making process can be done by applying different methods and tools, as well as using different objectives. In real-life problems, the formulation of decision-making problems and application of optimization techniques to support decisions are particularly complex and a wide range of optimization techniques and methodologies are used to minimize risks or improve quality in making concomitant decisions. In addition, a sensitivity analysis should be done to validate/analyze the influence of uncertainty regarding decision-making.

Prof. Víctor Yepes
Prof. José M. Moreno-Jiménez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Mathematics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI. Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript.

Keywords

  • Multicriteria decision making
  • Optimization techniques
  • Multiobjective optimization

 

 

Valoración de la contribución de una infraestructura a la sostenibilidad social bajo condiciones de incertidumbre

Nos acaban de publicar en la revista de Elsevier del primer cuartil, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, un artículo donde se valora la contribución de una infraestructura a la sostenibilidad social bajo condiciones de incertidumbre. Este artículo forma parte de nuestra línea de investigación BRIDLIFE en la que se pretenden optimizar estructuras atendiendo no solo a su coste, sino al impacto ambiental y social que generan a lo largo de su ciclo de vida.

 

 

Abstract:

Assessing the viability of a public infrastructure includes economic, technical and environmental aspects; however, on many occasions, the social aspects are not always adequately considered. This article proposes a procedure to estimate the social sustainability of infrastructure projects under conditions of uncertainty, based on a multicriteria deterministic method. The variability of the method inputs is contributed by the decision-makers. Uncertain inputs are treated through uniform and beta PERT distributions. The Monte Carlo method is used to propagate uncertainty in the method. A road infrastructure improvement case study in El Salvador illustrates this treatment. The main results determine the variability of the short and long-term social improvement indices by infrastructure and the probability of the position in prioritizing the alternatives. The proposed mechanism improves the reliability of the decision-making early in infrastructure projects, taking their social contribution into account. The results can complement environmental and economic sustainability assessments.

Keywords:

  • Infrastructure;
  • Multicriteria decision-making;
  • Uncertainty;
  • Social sustainability

 

Reference:

SIERRA, L.A.; YEPES, V.; PELLICER, E. (2017). Assessing the social sustainability contribution of an infrastructure project under conditions of uncertainty. Environmental Impact Assessment Review,67:61-72.