A fuzzy approach to R&D project portfolio selection

A major advance in the development of project selection tools came with the application of options reasoning in the field of Research and Development (R&D). The options approach to project evaluation seeks to correct the deficiencies of traditional methods of valuation through the recognition that managerial flexibility can bring significant value to projects. Our main concern is how to deal with non-statistical imprecision we encounter when judging or estimating future cash flows. In this paper, we develop a methodology for valuing options on R&D projects, when future cash flows are estimated by trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. In particular, we present a fuzzy mixed integer programming model for the R&D optimal portfolio selection problem, and discuss how our methodology can be used to build decision support tools for optimal R&D project selection in a corporate environment.     

Putting soft OR methods to work: The case of the business improvement project at PowerGen

In 1994 PowerGen, a UK electricity generating company, conducted a business improvement project. The project used a participative approach involving soft OR and systems thinking, an approach that was developed in earlier projects in food retailing and mining. The aim of the project was initially to conduct a benchmarking exercise and develop an information systems (IS) strategy. As the project progressed the emphasis moved to business process redesign and downsizing in the light of new perceptions of business prospects. The paper describes the design and implementation of the intervention, the evolution of the project, the problems encountered, and the outcome. Throughout it describes in some detail the interaction that took place. Although many improvements to current operations were identified for implementation, it proved difficult to obtain agreement to a fundamental change in the organisational structure. Two years after the project finished a new organisation based on the project's analysis has been adopted. The case is discussed drawing on a number of recent theoretical themes that have emerged from the debate about the process of OR. Conclusions are drawn about the value of the methods used in the intervention, the practicalities of mixing several methods, and the future direction the research programme should take.     

Decision Analysis for the Evaluation of Risk in Nuclear Waste Management

The implementation of a nuclear waste management technology raises several issues concerning the regulation of social risk. The most basic of those issues are how to regulate a technology when the uncertainties in social consequences are important, and how to incorporate the relevant social values in the regulations. This paper presents a decision analytic approach to resolving these issues, based on the development of radiological risk evaluation indices. While it is essentially a case study, describing work carried out for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, this case is used to discuss the more general issues involved.We begin by discussing the need for risk evaluation to provide a clear and defensible basis for regulating technologies involving social risk. We then present a development of risk evaluation indices for the regulation of nuclear waste management. The indices developed are expected utilities, based on preferences elicited from groups of people. The use of the indices developed is illustrated in a hypothetical example, and the usefulness of the methodology evaluated.     

Broadening the boundaries: an application of critical systems thinking to IS planning in Colombia

Most current information systems (IS) planning methodologies are focused on achieving plans that provide competitive advantage to business and solve the problems of information needs by using the latest technologies available. This paper presents an alternative approach to IS planning based on critical systems thinking—a research perspective that encourages the analysis of stakeholders' understandings of social contexts prior to the selection and/or design of planning methods. The approach is underpinned by a combination of the systems theories of autopoiesis and boundary critique, and it enables participants to reflect on different concerns and values during IS planning. This approach was applied in a project with a Colombian University, and it helped participants to uncover and address important human issues not usually seen as relevant by traditional approaches to IS planning. In addition, it led the authors to undertake further research on ethics after the project had been concluded.     

A conflict analysis approach for illuminating distributional issues in sustainability policy

In the area of environmental and resource management and in policies aiming at sustainable development, conflicting issues and interests are the normal state of affairs. Mathematical approaches cannot of course be a panacea able to resolve all real-world conflicts; but they can help to provide more insight into the nature of these conflicts by providing systematic information. Moreover mathematical models are very useful in helping at finding potential social compromises by making a complex situation more transparent to policy-makers and lay people. This is the main objective of the conflict analysis procedure developed here. Distributional issues are taken into consideration by means of an eclectic approach using concepts from land-use planning, fuzzy cluster analysis and social choice. All the various properties presented by the proposed approach are made explicit thus allowing its evaluation on theoretical and empirical grounds. Possible relationships of complementarity or conflictuality with other existing approaches are also discussed briefly. A real-world illustrative example is presented too.     

Optimal Control of Some Simple Deterministic Epidemic Models

Using control variables such as the level of medicare programme effort and the level of inoculation programme effort, three simple mathematical models of epidemics are transformed into optimal control problems. These are multi-state problems with the state variables as numbers of infectives and susceptibles and with the objective function being minimization of the total present value of the social or economic costs of infectives and medical controls. The problems are analysed with the framework of the maximum principle to obtain or, at least, partially characterize the optimal policies over time.     

The sustainability balanced scorecard as a framework for selecting socially responsible investment: an effective MCDM model

In recent years, sustainable development and social responsibility have become important issues around the globe. Investors are interested in the so-called ‘socially responsible investment’ (SRI), an investment strategy that employs criteria other than financial risk and return when selecting firms in which to invest. The practice of SRI shows that there are growing numbers of investors who want to take account of more criteria. Given this worldwide trend, the question arises how these issues can be incorporated into the investment decision process. This paper proposes a novel integrated model for selecting SRI stocks and illustrates the practical application of such a model through a case study. This model first applied the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approach to deal with the interdependencies existing among the criteria of organization requires, and then integrated the DEMATEL, the analytic network process, and the zero-one goal programming method to select an optimal portfolio of SRI. Additionally, we used the sustainability balanced scorecard as a multi-criteria framework for SRI evaluation. This integrated model enables the management to obtain the fitting SRI portfolio and achieves the desired spiritual value.     

基于多元价值目标的重大复杂工程评价研究

重大复杂工程是推动高质量发展的“牛鼻子”。本文提出了重大复杂工程全寿命周期评价的经济、社会、自然、科技、文化和人才六元价值目标体系,并对其产生机制以及与利益主体和全寿命周期的关系进行了理论分析。进而依据复杂系统理论,从作业系统层、系统层和包括外部环境的超系统层视角,构建了重大复杂工程全寿命周期多元价值目标评价的理论框架。依托该框架,以港珠澳大桥工程为例进行了初步的应用研究。本文研究丰富了重大复杂工程的评价理论,同时为重大工程管理实践提供理论指导和借鉴。     

ILP approaches to the blockmodel problem

Blockmodelling is a method for identifying structural similarities or equivalences between elements which has applications in a variety of contexts, including multiattribute performance assessment. One criterion for forming blocks results in a difficult non-linear integer programme. We give several integer linear programming formulations of this problem and provide comparative computational results. We show that methods of reducing symmetry proposed by Sherali and Smith are not effective in this case and propose an iterative approach in which the size of the problem is reduced.     

Simulation in Micro-Computers

Visual colour simulation development on APPLE computers is described in the context of a project to assess an expensive capital installation. The project was successful and showed the value and power of graphics on cheap computers when attention is paid to correct programme design. Emphasis is laid on rapid working, portability and the removal of communication barriers between analyst and management.     

Creating Employment Opportunities for People with Mental Health Problems: A Feasibility Study for New Initiatives

This paper describes a feasibility study for the development of a network of employment services for people with mental health problems (and others) who are unemployed. It highlights the problems of using debate-orientated, soft OR methods when there are difficulties of open communication between different interest groups. In this case, the interest groups were clients and professionals in the mental health system. To bypass these difficulties, a series of confidential interviews was conducted with stakeholders. The issue of who was to be interviewed was resolved through a rolling programme of recommendations, where each interviewee recommended others until most of the people being recommended were people who had already been seen. This approach allowed for the involvement of many people and agencies who the researchers did not initially suspect might be stakeholders. Having conducted the interviews, the researchers then produced a design in the form of an ‘expert’ report. Although they had serious reservations about taking such an approach instead of simply supporting the expertise of already identified stakeholders, it turned out, upon reflection, that they had made the right decision. The ‘expert’ appoach allowed the views of service users to be taken into account. Also, the rolling programme of recommendations used to determine who should be interviewed actually uncovered hitherto ‘hidden’ stakeholders who were crucial to the success or failure of the whole project.     

实物期权方法在自主创新项目投资决策中的应用

传统的投资决策方法由于蕴含着不确定性和可逆转性的假设使其不适应于高风险、高收益并存的自主创新项目投资决策.将实物期权思想融入自主创新项目投资决策方法,考虑了项目由于柔性经营的期权价值,能更准确地反映项目的价值,从而提高投资决策的科学性和合理性.从实物期权理论的基本原理出发,通过具体实例对比说明实物期权方法应用于自主创新项目投资决策的优势.     

Problem structuring methods: theorizing the benefits of deconstructing sustainable development projects

Problem structuring methods or PSMs are widely applied across a range of variable but generally small-scale organizational contexts. However, it has been argued that they are seen and experienced less often in areas of wide ranging and highly complex human activity—specifically those relating to sustainability, environment, democracy and conflict (or SEDC). In an attempt to plan, track and influence human activity in SEDC contexts, the authors in this paper make the theoretical case for a PSM, derived from various existing approaches. They show how it could make a contribution in a specific practical context—within sustainable coastal development projects around the Mediterranean which have utilized systemic and prospective sustainability analysis or, as it is now known, Imagine. The latter is itself a PSM but one which is ‘bounded’ within the limits of the project to help deliver the required ‘deliverables’ set out in the project blueprint. The authors argue that sustainable development projects would benefit from a deconstruction of process by those engaged in the project and suggest one approach that could be taken—a breakout from a project-bounded PSM to an analysis that embraces the project itself. The paper begins with an introduction to the sustainable development context and literature and then goes on to illustrate the issues by grounding the debate within a set of projects facilitated by Blue Plan for Mediterranean coastal zones. The paper goes on to show how the analytical framework could be applied and what insights might be generated.     

Assessing e-Participation via user’s satisfaction measurement: the case of OurSpace platform

The field of e-Participation is expanding as many similar platforms have been created to elicit citizens’ opinions on political and social issues in modern democracies especially under political and economic crises. The development of the field has been supported by emerging web technologies such as social networking, data mining, sentiment analysis and collaborative systems. This paper presents a methodological framework to assess the main dimensions of an e-Participation system from the users’ perspective by measuring users’ satisfaction and highlighting its advantages and identifying its shortcomings in order to propose areas for improvement. The method refers to an e-Participation platform developed in the scope of the e-Participation project OurSpace. The evaluation framework of the project was realized through a questionnaire, suitably designed to be in line with the Whyte and Macintosh theory of three perspectives: social, technical and political. The assessment of the OurSpace platform was performed through the multi-criteria satisfaction analysis method. The method provided all satisfaction diagrams and indices so as to determine the users’ opinion about OurSpace e-Participation system and point out the needed actions towards improvement.     

Linking mathematics education and democracy: Citizenship, mathematical archaeology, mathemacy and deliberative interaction

The relationship between mathematics education and democracy is discussed in terms of citizenship, mathematical archaeology, mathemacy and deliberative interaction. The first issue concentrates on the learner as a member of society, the second on the social functions of mathematics and on how to get to grips with mathematics in use, the third refers to an integrated kind of competence including different forms of reflection (mathematics-oriented, model-oriented, context-oriented and lifeworld-oriented reflections), the fourth issue considers the classroom as a micro-society and deals with the nature of the teaching-learning process. These four issues are discussed with reference to an example of educational practice. “Our Community”, carried out among sixteen-year-old students as an interdisciplinary project including a one-week trainee service. Finally, it is indicated that a discussion of mathematics education and democracy is essential to a further development of social theory, as the notions of citizenship, mathematical archaeology, mathemacy and deliberative interaction become part of the discussion about modemity, reflexive modemity and other constructs from recent social theory.     

Error Propagation in Game Trees

Game tree search is the core of most attempts to make computers play games. We present a fairly general theoretical analysis on how leaf evaluation errors influence the value estimation of a game position at the root. By an approach using prime factorization arguments in the ring of polynomials, we show that in this setting the maximum number of leaf-disjoint strategies proving a particular property is a key notion. This number precisely describes the quality of the heuristic game value in terms of the quality of the leaf evaluation heuristics. We extend this model to include random nodes (rolls of a die). Surprisingly, this changes the situation: utill the number of leaf-disjoint strategies ensures robustness against leaf evaluation errors, but the converse is not true. An average node may produce additional robustness similar to additional leaf-disjoint strategies. This work extends earlier ones which only deal with 0, 1 valued nodes, or without randomness.The first author was partially supported (associate member) by the graduate school ‘Effiziente Algorithmen und Mehrskalenmethoden’, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The second author was partially supported by the Future and Emerging Technologies programme of the EU under contract numbers IST-1999-14186 (ALCOM-FT) and IST-2001-33116 (FLAGS).     

Uncertainty Modelling in Software Development Projects (With Case Study)

A project scheduling model tailored specifically for software development projects is proposed in this study. The model incorporates uncertainties related to activity durations and network topology. The first type of uncertainty exists due to error-prone coding which might result in elongated task durations caused by validation and debugging sessions. Furthermore, in practice, macro-activities represent groups of sub-tasks in order to simplify the planning and monitoring of the project. Due to the aggregation, it is more difficult to be precise on the duration of a macro-activity.The uncertainty related to the network topology is due to common database design issues or program modules shared among parallel tasks in the project network. These tasks become associated with each other through uncertain Start-to-Start (SS) precedence relationships. On the other hand, SS lags may also be the outcome of technological precedence relationships among pairs of activities. However, the imprecision underlying the work content of a predecessor activity leads to uncertain SS lags.Software development projects are human-intensive projects and hence, the duration of a task depends on the skill of the person assigned to the job as well as his/her learning rate. Thus, a task may be realized by alternative staff members which results in different expected task durations. Hence, a realistic model proposed for software development projects should incorporate staff assignment features under the uncertainties discussed above. In this study, we develop a mathematical model for software development projects and propose heuristic solution methods to be used by the project co-ordinator in preparing the project plan. The heuristic algorithms developed here are tested on real data provided by a consulting firm undertaking software development projects from manufacturing companies in Turkey.     

基于层次分析和中介真值度量的工程质量模糊综合评判

随着建筑市场日益完善,建筑工程项目的质量越来越受到政府和业主的关注.通过专家打分,结合层次分析和中介真值度量的方法,对建成项目的质量进行模糊综合评判,并与传统模糊评价方法进行了比较分析.基于层次分析和中介真值度量的工程质量模糊评判方法,为工程项目质量的评判比较开辟了新的道路,为新时代工程项目后评价赋予了新的内涵.     

最小二乘原理在隧道施工安全质量预测预报中的应用

土建工程的安全质量控制的本质,就是运用数理统计原理,归纳、分析实测得到的有关数据,从而达到对现场安全作出准确诊断、对施工质量作出正确评价之目的,其中最常涉及的数学理论知识点是最小二乘原理.通过一隧道工程实例,阐明了最小二乘原理在其安全质量预测预报中的作用及使用,颇具实用性操作性地实现了数学理论与工程实际的密切结合.     

风险收益不对等条件下中国对外直接投资合作模式的优化

针对对外直接投资所面临的资金短缺、进展不顺利的问题,在风险分担理论的基础上构建中国政府、东道国政府和社会资本的投资合作模型。目的在于设计出足够吸引社会资本投入,且保证中国对外直接投资顺利开展的风险分担模式。并通过数值模拟风险分担比例和利润分享比例对投资时机和投资价值的影响,证明了中国政府与社会资本间存在最优的风险分担比例,以及东道国政府与社会资本存在最优利润分享比例。