Planning and decision-making for energy recovery from waste at the sub-regional level

This research project has developed a novel decision support system using Geographical Information Systems and Multi Criteria Decision Analysis and used it to develop and evaluate energy-from-waste policy options. The system was validated by applying it to the UK administrative areas of Cornwall and Warwickshire. Different strategies have been defined by the size and number of the facilities, as well as the technology chosen. Using sensitivity on the results from the decision support system, it was found that key decision criteria included those affected by cost, energy efficiency, transport impacts and air/dioxin emissions. The conclusions of this work are that distributed small-scale energy-from-waste facilities score most highly overall and that scale is more important than technology design in determining overall policy impact. This project makes its primary contribution to energy-from-waste planning by its development of a Decision Support System that can be used to assist waste disposal authorities to identify preferred energy-from-waste options that have been tailored specifically to the socio-geographic characteristics of their jurisdictional areas. The project also highlights the potential of energy-from-waste policies that are seldom given enough attention to in the UK, namely those of a smaller-scale and distributed nature that often have technology designed specifically to cater for this market.

Investement appraisal in a deregulated electricity market

This thesis analyses the impact of deregulation on the theory and practice of investment decision making in the electricity sector and appraises the likely effects on its long term future inefficiency. Part I describes the market and its shortcomings in promoting an optimal generation margin and plant mix and in reducing prices through competition. A full size operational model is developed to simulate hour by hour operation of the market and analyse its features. A relationship is established between the SMP and plant mix and between the LOLP and plant margin and it is shown bow a theoretical optimum can be derived when the combined LOLP payments and the capital costs of additional generation reach a minimum. A comparison of prices against an idealised bulk supply tariff is used to show how energy prices have risen some 12% in excess of what might have occurred under the CEGB regime. This part concludes with proposals to improve the marlinvestment appraisal is no longer valid and develops a new approach. It is shown how an individual generator can predict his utilisation and income to establish the worth of investment and demonstrates the validity of the operational model proposed. An empirical relationship is developed between profit and capacity and this is used to develop the theory to illustrate how companies interact. 1bree different economic models are developed to represent different market conditions and these are tested against the actual investment decisions since deregulation to demonstrate their appropriateness. It is shown that the current market mechanisms could lead to suboptimal investment. Part 3 discusses the essential role of transmission in enabling competition and reviews worldwide practices illustrating little consensus on charging for its use. Basic costing principles are described and a new model is developed to demonstrate bow a generator may strike supply agreements either side of an interconnector to influence prices so as to maximise his income. The optimal pricing strategy for the transmitter is also derived and consumer response is simulated .The concept of transmission uplift is developed and the operational model is extended to include transmission constraints and then used to establish monthly incremental transmission constraint cost functions. It is shown how these can be used to appraise investment options and optimally plan outages. Part 4 concludes by discussing the regulatory framework and its limitations in improving efficiency or encouraging the optimum levels of investment. The principal findings of the thesis are reviewed and potential market improvement are described. This part concludes with a discussion of alternative market structures and likely future developments.

Type-2 TOPSIS:a group decision problem when ideal values are not extreme endpoints

In the traditional TOPSIS, the ideal solutions are assumed to be located at the endpoints of the data interval. However, not all performance attributes possess ideal values at the endpoints. We termed performance attributes that have ideal values at extreme points as Type-1 attributes. Type-2 attributes however possess ideal values somewhere within the data interval instead of being at the extreme end points. This provides a preference ranking problem when all attributes are computed and assumed to be of the Type-1 nature. To overcome this issue, we propose a new Fuzzy DEA method for computing the ideal values and distance function of Type-2 attributes in a TOPSIS methodology. Our method allows Type-1 and Type-2 attributes to be included in an evaluation system without compromising the ranking quality. The efficacy of the proposed model is illustrated with a vendor evaluation case for a high-tech investment decision making exercise. A comparison analysis with the traditional TOPSIS is also presented. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

The complements towards developing a new risk management framework and Its applicability to the Nigerian power sector

The availability of regular supply has been identified as one of the major stimulants for the growth and development of any nation and is thus important for the economic well-being of a nation. The problems of the Nigerian power sector stems from a lot of factors culminating in her slow developmental growth and inability to meet the power demands of her citizens regardless of the abundance of human and natural resources prevalent in the nation. The research therefore had the main aim of investigating the importance and contributions of risk management to the success of projects specific to the power sector. To achieve this aim it was pertinent to examine the efficacy of risk management process in practice and elucidate the various risks typically associated with projects (Construction, Contractual, Political, Financial, Design, Human resource and Environmental risk factors) in the power sector as well as determine the current situation of risk management practice in Nigeria. To address this factors inhibiting the proficiency of the overarching and prevailing issue which have only been subject to limited in-depth academic research, a rigorous mixed research method was adopted (quantitative and qualitative data analysis). A review of the Nigeria power sector was also carried out as a precursor to the data collection stage. Using purposive sampling technique, respondents were identified and a questionnaire survey was administered. The research hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics (Pearson correlation, Chi-square test, t-test and ANOVA technique) and the findings revealed the need for the development of a new risk management implementation Framework. The proposed Framework was tested within a company project, for interpreting the dynamism and essential benefits of risk management with the aim of improving the project performances (time), reducing the level of fragmentation (quality) and improving profitability (cost) within the Nigerian power sector in order to bridge a gap between theory and practice. It was concluded that Nigeria’s poor risk management practices have prevented it from experiencing strong growth and development. The study however, concludes that the successful implementation of the developed risk management framework may help it to attain this status by enabling it to become more prepared and flexible, to face challenges that previously led to project failures, and thus contributing to its prosperity. The research study provides an original contribution theoretically, methodologically and practically which adds to the project risk management body of knowledge and to the Nigerian power sector.

Developing brownfields ranking models using decision analytic methods

The redevelopment of Brownfields has taken off in the 1990s, supported by federal and state incentives, and largely accomplished by local initiatives. Brownfields redevelopment has several associated benefits. These include the revitalization of inner-city neighborhoods, creation of jobs, stimulation of tax revenues, greater protection of public health and natural resources, the renewal and reuse existing civil infrastructure and Greenfields protection. While these benefits are numerous, the obstacles to Brownfields redevelopment are also very much alive. Redevelopment issues typically embrace a host of financial and legal liability concerns, technical and economic constraints, competing objectives, and uncertainties arising from inadequate site information. Because the resources for Brownfields redevelopment are usually limited, local programs will require creativity in addressing these existing obstacles in a manner that extends their limited resources for returning Brownfields to productive uses. Such programs may benefit from a structured and defensible decision framework to prioritize sites for redevelopment: one that incorporates the desired objectives, corresponding variables and uncertainties associated with Brownfields redevelopment. This thesis demonstrates the use of a decision analytic tool, Bayesian Influence Diagrams, and related decision analytic tools in developing quantitative decision models to evaluate and rank Brownfields sites on the basis of their redevelopment potential.

Financing infrastructure development : time to unshackle the bonds?

The authors would like to thank the RICS for their financial support of the project and the numerous respondents who gave so freely of their time. Part of the research was supported by a grant from the Hong Kong-Scotland Partners in Post-Doctoral Research Scheme sponsored by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the Scottish Government (S-HKU701/13).

A review of road structure data in six European countries

The European Union has expanded significantly in recent years. Sustainable trade within the Union, leading to economic growth to the benefit of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states is thus extremely important. The road infrastructure is strategic and vital to such development since an uneven transport infrastructure, in terms of capacity and condition, has the potential to reinforce uneven development trends and hinder economic convergence of old and new member states. In the decades since their design and construction, loading conditions have significantly changed for many major highway infrastructure elements/networks owing primarily to increased freight volumes and vehicle sizes. This, coupled with the gradual deterioration of a significant number of highway structures due to their age, and the absence of a pan-European assessment framework, can be expected to affect the smooth functioning of the infrastructure in its as-built condition. Increased periods of reduced flow can be expected owing to planned and unplanned interventions for repair/rehabilitation. This paper reports the findings of a survey regarding the current status of the highway infrastructure elements in six countries within the European Union as reported by the owners/operators. The countries surveyed include a cross-section of ‘existing’ older countries and ‘new’ member states. The current situations for bridges, culverts, tunnels and retaining walls are reported, along with their potential replacement costs. The findings act as a departure point for further studies in support of a centralised and/or synchronised EU approach to infrastructure maintenance management. Information in the form presented in this paper is central to any future decision-making frameworks in terms of trade route choice and operations, monetary investment, optimised maintenance, management and rehabilitation of the built infrastructure and the economic integration of the newly joined member states.

A Framework to Support the Sharing and Reuse of Computable Phenotype Definitions Across Health Care Delivery and Clinical Research Applications.

INTRODUCTION: The ability to reproducibly identify clinically equivalent patient populations is critical to the vision of learning health care systems that implement and evaluate evidence-based treatments. The use of common or semantically equivalent phenotype definitions across research and health care use cases will support this aim. Currently, there is no single consolidated repository for computable phenotype definitions, making it difficult to find all definitions that already exist, and also hindering the sharing of definitions between user groups. METHOD: Drawing from our experience in an academic medical center that supports a number of multisite research projects and quality improvement studies, we articulate a framework that will support the sharing of phenotype definitions across research and health care use cases, and highlight gaps and areas that need attention and collaborative solutions. FRAMEWORK: An infrastructure for re-using computable phenotype definitions and sharing experience across health care delivery and clinical research applications includes: access to a collection of existing phenotype definitions, information to evaluate their appropriateness for particular applications, a knowledge base of implementation guidance, supporting tools that are user-friendly and intuitive, and a willingness to use them. NEXT STEPS: We encourage prospective researchers and health administrators to re-use existing EHR-based condition definitions where appropriate and share their results with others to support a national culture of learning health care. There are a number of federally funded resources to support these activities, and research sponsors should encourage their use.

A formação em educação ambiental na ênfase em gestão de patrimônio socioambiental do curso de História - Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande

A presente dissertação de mestrado teve como fenômeno de estudo a Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental do curso de História Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande – FURG, buscando compreender o processo de constituição e desenvolvimento desta Ênfase e suas articulações com a Educação Ambiental. Para tanto, foram elencadas três hipóteses: (a) a Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental do curso de Bacharelado em História da FURG não é estruturada e nem desenvolvida a partir das emergências da crise estrutural da qual a crise ambiental é um aspecto latente; (b) os saberes desenvolvidos na Ênfase não possibilitam que o egresso desenvolva a criticidade e a formação necessária para o cumprimento de sua função socioambiental; (c) a Educação Ambiental desenvolvida na Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental do curso de História – Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande – FURG não é expressão de uma ciência que se pretenda a serviço da classe trabalhadora e que se proponha a encarar os desafios das questões impostas pela crise ambiental. Em decorrência destas, foi desenvolvido um objetivo geral e três objetivos específicos, sendo eles: (a) Entender as condições sociais de crise ambiental em meio as quais surge a necessidade de gestores do patrimônio socioambiental; (b) Analisar os aspectos teóricos do campo da Educação Ambiental e a compreensão de ciência presentes na formação dos gestores do patrimônio socioambiental; (c) Identificar, no Projeto Pedagógico do curso de História Bacharelado, os aspectos políticos que demonstrem a função social do egresso. Ainda no sentido de atender ao objetivo geral foram organizadas quatro questões de pesquisa, a saber: (a) Quais as emergências da necessidade de criação da Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental no curso de História - Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG? (b) Que perspectiva de Educação Ambiental tem os professores da Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental do curso de História - Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG? (c) Que compreensão de ciência e de Educação Ambiental está vinculada à formação dos egressos da Ênfase em Gestão do Patrimônio Socioambiental do curso de História - Bacharelado da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG? (d) Quais saberes são fundamentais na formação dos gestores do patrimônio socioambiental para que compreendam os fundamentos da crise que faz emergir a necessidade da função social de tal ênfase? Nesta pesquisa foram utilizados, prioritariamente, os referenciais teóricos e epistemológicos com vinculação à compreensão de mundo marxista. Após o processo de revisão bibliográfica foram desenvolvidas entrevistas semi-estruturadas com sete professores atuantes na ênfase em estudo. Na sequência, para apreciação das informações, foi utilizado o referencial metodológico da Análise de Conteúdo de Laurence Bardin. Concluiu-se no processo de pesquisa que a ênfase se relaciona com a oferta de novas possibilidades de atuação profissional do historiador gestor. Bem como os saberes desenvolvidos na ênfase possibilitam parcialmente a constituição da criticidade dos egressos. Por fim, a Educação Ambiental desenvolvida na ênfase não pode, em sua totalidade, estar a serviço da classe trabalhadora, pois está circunscrita, no presente momento histórico, aos limites do Capital.

Attitudes towards risk in financial decision making

Doutoramento em Gestão

Essays on Financial Constraints, R&D Investments, and Competition

This dissertation consists of two chapters of theoretical studies that investigate the effect of financial constraints and market competition on research and development (R&D) investments. In the first chapter, I explore the impact of financial constraints on two different types of R&D investments. In the second chapter, I examine the impact of market competition on the relationship between financial constraints and R&D investments. In the first chapter, I develop a dynamic monopoly model to study a firm’s R&D strategy. Contrary to intuition, I show that a financially constrained firm may invest more aggressively in R&D projects than an unconstrained firm. Financial constraints introduce a risk that a firm may run out of money before its project bears fruit, which leads to involuntary termination on an otherwise positive-NPV project. For a company that relies on cash flow from assets in place to keep its R&D project alive, early success can be relatively important. I find that when the discovery process can be expedited by heavier investment (“accelerable” projects), a financially constrained company may find it optimal to “over”-invest in order to raise the probability of project survival. The over-investment will not happen if the project is only “scalable” (investment scales up payoffs). The model generates several testable implications regarding over-investment and project values. In the second chapter, I study the effects of competition on R&D investments in a duopoly framework. Using a homogeneous duopoly model where two unconstrained firms compete head to head in an R&D race, I find that competition has no effect on R&D investment if the project is not accelerable, and the competing firms are not constrained. In a heterogeneous duopoly model where a financially constrained firm competes against an unconstrained firm, I discover interesting strategic interactions that lead to preemption by the constrained firm in equilibrium. The unconstrained competitor responds to its constrained rival’s investment in an inverted-U shape fashion. When the constrained competitor has high cash flow risk, it accelerates the innovation in equilibrium, while the unconstrained firm invests less aggressively and waits for its rival to quit the race due to shortage of funds.

O impacte da internet na aprendizagem da física

Dissertação de mest. em Física, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Univ. do Algarve, 2004

Identificación de las relaciones reales y posibles entre la administración basada en modelos, la ciencia computacional de la organización y la ingeniería emergente en el contexto de la gestión organizacional

Las teorías administrativas se han basado, casi sin excepción, en los fundamentos y los modelos de la ciencia clásica (particularmente, en los modelos de la física newtoniana). Sin embargo, las organizaciones actualmente se enfrentan a un mundo globalizado, plagado de información (y no necesariamente conocimiento), hiperconectado, dinámico y cargado de incertidumbre, por lo que muchas de las teorías pueden mostrar limitaciones para las organizaciones. Y quizá no por la estructura, la lógica o el alcance de las mismas, sino por la falta de criterios que justifiquen su aplicación. En muchos casos, las organizaciones siguen utilizando la intuición, las suposiciones y las verdades a medias en la toma de decisiones. Este panorama pone de manifiesto dos hechos: de un lado, la necesidad de buscar un método que permita comprender las situaciones de cada organización para apoyar la toma de decisiones. De otro lado, la necesidad de potenciar la intuición con modelos y técnicas no tradicionales (usualmente provenientes o inspiradas por la ingeniería). Este trabajo busca anticipar los pilares de un posible método que permita apoyar la toma de decisiones por medio de la simulación de modelos computacionales, utilizando las posibles interacciones entre: la administración basada en modelos, la ciencia computacional de la organización y la ingeniería emergente.

Análisis de la toma de decisiones a nivel del alto gobierno, durante la crisis del Palacio de Justicia en noviembre de 1985.

El objetivo de este estudio, consiste en el análisis de la toma de decisiones del gabinete ministerial del presidente Belisario Betancur, durante la crisis de la toma del Palacio de Justicia por parte del M-19, durante los días 6 y 7 de noviembre de 1985. Para ello, se utilizará un enfoque histórico sociológico e institucional, realizando una revisión documental para describir los hechos previos a la toma del Palacio de Justicia, examinar el escalamiento de la crisis y explicar el proceso de toma de decisiones a nivel del alto gobierno, durante el desarrollo de la toma militar del Palacio. De esta forma se busca comprobar, utilizando principalmente el modelo de políticas gubernamentales de Graham T. Allison, que durante el proceso de toma de decisiones no se realizó un adecuado análisis del contexto, no se tuvo en cuenta los factores psicológicos de cada actor del conflicto, ni hubo claridad sobre el rol que desempeñó cada uno dentro de la mencionada crisis, creando las condiciones para el desenlace violento que generó el conocido Holocausto del Palacio de Justicia.

La incidencia de los cupos indicativos en las relaciones ejecutivo-legislativo en la Ley anual de presupuesto

El propósito de este trabajo es analizar la incidencia que tienen los llamados cupos indicativos sobre las relaciones entre el ejecutivo y el legislativo, ubicados en el contexto de discusión y aprobación de la ley anual de presupuesto. El mecanismo conocido anteriormente como auxilios parlamentarios, hoy ha evolucionado y recibe el nombre de cupos indicativos. La investigación se divide en tres momentos: Marco legal de la ley anual de presupuesto y el derecho presupuestario en Colombia, el origen y evolución de los cupos indicativos durante los momentos históricos del derecho presupuestario. Finalmente, la incidencia de los cupos indicativos en las relaciones ejecutivo – legislativo.