New directions in Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis

Decisions taken in modern organizations are often multi-dimensional, involving multiple decision makers and several criteria measured on different scales. Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are designed to analyze and to give recommendations in this kind of situations. Among the numerous MCDM methods, two large families of methods are the multi-attribute utility theory based methods and the outranking methods. Traditionally both method families require exact values for technical parameters and criteria measurements, as well as for preferences expressed as weights. Often it is hard, if not impossible, to obtain exact values. Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) is a family of methods designed to help in this type of situations where exact values are not available. Different variants of SMAA allow handling all types of MCDM problems. They support defining the model through uncertain, imprecise, or completely missing values. The methods are based on simulation that is applied to obtain descriptive indices characterizing the problem. In this thesis we present new advances in the SMAA methodology. We present and analyze algorithms for the SMAA-2 method and its extension to handle ordinal preferences. We then present an application of SMAA-2 to an area where MCDM models have not been applied before: planning elevator groups for high-rise buildings. Following this, we introduce two new methods to the family: SMAA-TRI that extends ELECTRE TRI for sorting problems with uncertain parameter values, and SMAA-III that extends ELECTRE III in a similar way. An efficient software implementing these two methods has been developed in conjunction with this work, and is briefly presented in this thesis. The thesis is closed with a comprehensive survey of SMAA methodology including a definition of a unified framework.

Prospektiteoria ja sijoitusten hajauttaminen

Tämä tutkielma replikoi vuonna 1979 tehtyä Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk tutkimusta. Tutkielman tarkoituksena on tutkia odotetun hyödyn teorian ja prospektiteorian välistä eroa. Lisäksi tutkielmassa pyritään tutkimaan onko vastaajien vastauksilla yhteyttä heidän hajauttamiseensa ulkomaisiin sijoituskohteisiin. Kysymykset ovat suoraan replikoituja lukuun ottamatta viimeistä kysymystä, joka on tutkielman laatijan oma kysymys. Vastaukset on kerätty pörssiyhtiöiden yhtiökokouksissa Suomessa keväällä 2011 ja Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston opiskelijoiden keskuudessa.

A conspectus on estimating function theory and its applicability to recurrent modeling issues in forest biometry

Summary

Consumers' use of nutrition-related endorsement symbol to help their purchase decisions: An extension of the theory of planned behaviour

Tutkimuksessa haluttiin selvittää, mitkä tekijät vaikuttavat ravintoon liittyvän suositusmerkin käyttöön kuluttajan ostopäätöksen apuna. Tutkimuksen viitekehyksen pohjaksi valittiin suunnitellun toiminnan teoria, joka on osoittautunut selittämään hyvin useaa ravintoon- ja terveyteen liittyvää käyttäytymistä. Tutkimustoteutettiin kyselytutkimuksella, jonka aineisto kerättiin Internetissä julkaistulla kyselylomakkeella. Tulokset osoittivat, että kuluttajan aikomus käyttää suositusmerkkiä oli mallin vahvin selittäjä. Lisäksi merkin käyttöä selitti kuluttajan kokema sisäinen kontrolli, johon ulkoinen kontrolli vahvasti vaikuttaa. Ostopäätössitoutumisen havaittiin vaikuttavan aikomuksen ja todellisen merkin käytön väliseen yhteyteen. Yleisesti tulokset osoittivat, että kuluttajilla on aikomusta käyttää merkkiä, mutta todellinen käyttö on huomattavasti vähäisempää.

Analyzing dynamic intellectual capital: System-based theory and application

This research report presents an application of systems theory to evaluating intellectual capital (IC) as organization's ability for self-renewal. As renewal ability is a dynamic capability of an organization as a whole, rather than a static asset or an atomistic competence of separate individuals within the organization, it needs to be understood systemically. Consequently, renewal ability has to be measured with systemic methods that are based on a thorough conceptual analysis of systemic characteristics of organizations. The aim of this report is to demonstrate the theory and analysis methodology for grasping companies' systemic efficiency and renewal ability. The volume is divided into three parts. The first deals with the theory of organizations as self-renewing systems. In the second part, the principles of quantitative analysis of organizations are laid down. Finally, the detailed mathematics of the renewal indices are presented. We also assert that the indices produced by the analysis are an effective tool for the management and valuation of knowledge-intensive companies.

Field Sales Management Control: Towards a Multi-Level Theory

The purpose of this dissertation is to increase the understanding and knowledge of field sales management control systems (i.e. sales managers monitoring, directing, evaluating and rewarding activities) and their potential consequences on salespeople. This topic is important because research conducted in the past has indicated that the choice of control system type can on the other hand have desirable consequences, such as high levels of motivation and performance, and on the other hand leadto harmful unintended consequences, such as opportunistic or unethical behaviors. Despite the fact that marketing and sales management control systems have been under rigorous research for over two decades, it still is at a very early stage of development, and several inconsistencies can be found in the research results. This dissertation argues that these inconsistencies are mainly derived from misspecification of the level of analysis in the past research. These different levels of analysis (i.e. strategic, tactical, and operational levels) involve very different decision-making situations regarding the control and motivation of sales force, which should be taken into consideration when conceptualizing the control. Moreover, the study of salesperson consequences of a field sales management control system is actually a cross-level phenomenon, which means that at least two levels of analysis are simultaneously involved. The results of this dissertation confirm the need to re-conceptualize the field sales management control system concept. It provides empirical evidence for the assertion that control should be conceptualized with more details atthe tactical/operational level of analysis than at the strategic levelof analysis. Moreover, the results show that some controls are more efficiently communicated to field salespeople than others. It is proposed that this difference is due to different purposes of control; some controls aredesigned for influencing salespersons' behavior (aim at motivating) whereas some controls are designed to aid decision-making (aim at providing information). According to the empirical results of this dissertation, the both types of controls have an impact to the sales force, but this impactis not as strong as expected. The results obtained in this dissertation shed some light to the nature of field sales management control systems, and their consequences on salespeopl

Pientuulivoimaloiden markkinapotentiaalin arviointi Suomessa ja globaalisti

Työn tavoitteena on selvittää pientuulivoimaloiden markkinapotentiaali Suomessa sekä muualla maailmassa, ja kartoittaa alalla toimivat kilpailijat. Tarkoituksena on myös arvioida kuinka tilanne tulee jatkossa kehittymään ja, mitkä ovat Hafmex Windforce Oy:n mahdollisuudet kilpailla kyseisillä markkinoilla. Lisäksi tarkastelun kohteena on selvittää millä edellytyksillä pientuulivoimaloita voidaan liittää paikalliseen sähkönjakeluverkkoon. Työssä on myös esitelty kaupallisten tuulivoimaloiden perusperiaatteita, sekä tällä hetkellä käytössä olevaa teknologiaa. Tarkemmin on keskitytty pientuulivoimaloiden toiminnan periaatteisiin. Työn teoriapohjassa tarkastellaan markkinatutkimuksen suorittamisen erityispiirteitä, markkinapotentiaalin määrittämiseen liittyviä käsitteitä ja kilpailija-analyysin suorittamista. Teoriaosa perustuu alan kirjallisuudesta, lehtiartikkeleista sekä internetistä kerättyyn materiaaliin.

Concepts and Reference. Defending a Dual Theory of Natural Kind Concepts

In this thesis I argue that the psychological study of concepts and categorisation, and the philosophical study of reference are deeply intertwined. I propose that semantic intuitions are a variety of categorisation judgements, determined by concepts, and that because of this, concepts determine reference. I defend a dual theory of natural kind concepts, according to which natural kind concepts have distinct semantic cores and non-semantic identification procedures. Drawing on psychological essentialism, I suggest that the cores consist of externalistic placeholder essence beliefs. The identification procedures, in turn, consist of prototypes, sets of exemplars, or possibly also theory-structured beliefs. I argue that the dual theory is motivated both by experimental data and theoretical considerations. The thesis consists of three interrelated articles. Article I examines philosophical causal and description theories of natural kind term reference, and argues that they involve, or need to involve, certain psychological elements. I propose a unified theory of natural kind term reference, built on the psychology of concepts. Article II presents two semantic adaptations of psychological essentialism, one of which is a strict externalistic Kripkean-Putnamian theory, while the other is a hybrid account, according to which natural kind terms are ambiguous between internalistic and externalistic senses. We present two experiments, the results of which support the strict externalistic theory. Article III examines Fodor’s influential atomistic theory of concepts, according to which no psychological capacities associated with concepts constitute them, or are necessary for reference. I argue, contra Fodor, that the psychological mechanisms are necessary for reference.

Statistical Inversion Theory in X-ray Tomography

In this thesis the X-ray tomography is discussed from the Bayesian statistical viewpoint. The unknown parameters are assumed random variables and as opposite to traditional methods the solution is obtained as a large sample of the distribution of all possible solutions. As an introduction to tomography an inversion formula for Radon transform is presented on a plane. The vastly used filtered backprojection algorithm is derived. The traditional regularization methods are presented sufficiently to ground the Bayesian approach. The measurements are foton counts at the detector pixels. Thus the assumption of a Poisson distributed measurement error is justified. Often the error is assumed Gaussian, altough the electronic noise caused by the measurement device can change the error structure. The assumption of Gaussian measurement error is discussed. In the thesis the use of different prior distributions in X-ray tomography is discussed. Especially in severely ill-posed problems the use of a suitable prior is the main part of the whole solution process. In the empirical part the presented prior distributions are tested using simulated measurements. The effect of different prior distributions produce are shown in the empirical part of the thesis. The use of prior is shown obligatory in case of severely ill-posed problem.