Municipal solid waste management system: decision support through systems analysis

Thesis submitted to the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Engineering

Risk-based decision support system for life cycle management of industrials plants

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Interactive spatial decision support for sustainable agroforestry management: a case study in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Forest managers, stakeholders and investors want to be able to evaluate economic, environmental and social benefits in order to improve the outcomes of their decisions and enhance sustainable forest management. This research developed a spatial decision support system that provides: (1) an approach to identify the most beneficial locations for agroforestry projects based on the biophysical properties and evaluate its economic, social and environmental impact; (2) a tool to inform prospective investors and stakeholders of the potential and opportunities for integrated agroforestry management; (3) a simulation environment that enables evaluation via a dashboard with the opportunity to perform interactive sensitivity analysis for key parameters of the project; (4) a 3D interactive geographic visualization of the economic, environmental and social outcomes, which facilitate understanding and eases planning. Although the tool and methodology presented are generic, a case study was performed in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. For the whole study area, it was simulated the most suitable location for three different plantation schemes: monoculture of timber, a specific recipe (cassava, banana and sugar palm) and different recipes per geographic unit. The results indicate that a mixed cropping plantation scheme, with different recipes applied to the most suitable location returns higher economic, environmental and social benefits.

The use of analytical hierarchy process in spatial decision support system for land use management

Geographic information systems give us the possibility to analyze, produce, and edit geographic information. Furthermore, these systems fall short on the analysis and support of complex spatial problems. Therefore, when a spatial problem, like land use management, requires a multi-criteria perspective, multi-criteria decision analysis is placed into spatial decision support systems. The analytic hierarchy process is one of many multi-criteria decision analysis methods that can be used to support these complex problems. Using its capabilities we try to develop a spatial decision support system, to help land use management. Land use management can undertake a broad spectrum of spatial decision problems. The developed decision support system had to accept as input, various formats and types of data, raster or vector format, and the vector could be polygon line or point type. The support system was designed to perform its analysis for the Zambezi river Valley in Mozambique, the study area. The possible solutions for the emerging problems had to cover the entire region. This required the system to process large sets of data, and constantly adjust to new problems’ needs. The developed decision support system, is able to process thousands of alternatives using the analytical hierarchy process, and produce an output suitability map for the problems faced.

Web GIS to support irrigation management: a prototype for SAGRA network, Alentejo Portugal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Algorithms and methodologies for decision support in energy efficiency on buildings

Dissertação apresentada na faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Georeferencing Road Accidents with Google Earth: Transforming Information into Knowledge for Decision Support

Over the last fifty years mobility practices have changed dramatically, improving the way travel takes place, the time it takes but also on matters like road safety and prevention. High mortality caused by high accident levels has reached untenable levels. But the research into road mortality stayed limited to comparative statistical exercises which go no further than defining accident types. In terms of sharing information and mapping accidents, little progress has been mad, aside from the normal publication of figures, either through simplistic tables or web pages. With considerable technological advances on geographical information technologies, research and development stayed rather static with only a few good examples on dynamic mapping. The use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices as normal equipments on automobile industry resulted in a more dynamic mobility patterns but also with higher degrees of uncertainty on road traffic. This paper describes a road accident georeferencing project for the Lisbon District involving fatalities and serious injuries during 2007. In the initial phase, individual information summaries were compiled giving information on accidents and its majour characteristics, collected by the security forces: the Public Safety Police Force (Polícia de Segurança Pública - PSP) and the National Guard (Guarda Nacional Republicana - GNR). The Google Earth platform was used to georeference the information in order to inform the public and the authorities of the accident locations, the nature of the location, and the causes and consequences of the accidents. This paper also gives future insights about augmented reality technologies, considered crucial to advances to road safety and prevention studies. At the end, this exercise could be considered a success because of numerous consequences, as for stakeholders who decide what to do but also for the public awareness to the problem of road mortality.

Intelligent decision support systems for collaboration in industrial plants

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Sistemas de Informação Industriais, Engenharia Electrotécnica, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Integration of crowdsourced information with traditional crises and disaster management information using linked data

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Environmental Decision-making utilizing a Web GIS to Monitor Hazardous Industrial Emissions in the Valencian community of Spain

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

An essay on agile project management practices

The main goals for the current dissertation is to research on how practices and concepts from Agile Project Management can be applied in a non-IT context and to discover which aspects should be considered when deciding if whether an Agile approach should be implemented or not. Previous studies reflect on the adoption for the identified context. However, the recognition of these practices and concepts by the Project Management field of studies still remains unresolved. The adoption of Agile Project Management emerges as a manifestation against traditional approaches, mainly due to their inability of accepting requirements’ changes. Therefore, these practices and concepts can be considered in order to reduce the risks concerning the increase of competition and innovation – which does not apply to the IT sector solely. The current study reviews the literature on Agile Project Management and its adoption across different sectors in order to assess which practices and concepts can be applied on a non-IT context. Nine different methods are reviewed, where two of these show a higher relevance – Scrum and Extreme Programming. The identified practices and concepts can be separated into four different groups: Cultural and Organizational Structures, Process, Practices, and Artefacts. A framework based on the work by Boehm & Turner in 2004 is developed in order to support the decision of adopting agile methods. A survey intended for project managers was carried in order to assess the implementation of the identified practices and concepts and to evaluate which variables have the highest importance on the developed decision support framework. It is concluded that New Product Development is the project type with the highest potential to implement an agile approach and that the Project Final Product’s Innovativeness, Competitiveness, and the Project Member’s Experience and Autonomy are the most important aspects to consider an implementation of an Agile approach.

Land use / land cover change detection: an object oriented approach, Münster, Germany

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Enterprise information portals: potential for evaluating research for knowledge management and human capital assets using social network analysis

Paper presented at the ECKM 2010 – 11th European Conference on Knowledge Management, 2-3 September, 2010, Famalicão, Portugal. URL: http://www.academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2010/eckm10-home.htm

Spatial metrics and Landsat data for urban landuse change detection: case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Gestão de produto PREMFIRE – sistema de informação geográfica 3D para apoio ao combate a incêndios.

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciência e Sistemas de Informação Geográfica.