Analysis of a controversial decision process: the case of the pumped hydro storage power plant Atdorf in Germany

Based on the report for the unit “Métodos Interactivos de Participação e Decisão A” (Interactive methods of participation and decision A), coordinated by Prof. Lia Maldonado Teles de Vasconcelos and Prof. Nuno Miguel Ribeiro Videira Costa. This unit was provided for the PhD Program in Technology Assessment in 2015/2016.

Relatório de estágio curricular no Centro de Arbitragem Comercial da Câmara de Comércio e Indústria portuguesa

This report is the outcome of an internship that took place in Centro de Arbitragem Comercial da Câmara de Comércio e Indústria Portuguesa and its completion is an essential part of the path towards obtaining the Master’s Degree in Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. This report has been structured in two stages – firstly, the presentation of the Centro de Arbitragem Comercial, focusing on its field of expertise, organic structure, principles and advantages. Then, the description of the activities developed within the Secretariat over the several stages of the arbitration procedure – since the reception of the arbitration requirement in institutional proceedings, terms of reference in ad hoc procedures, through the monitoring of the arbitral tribunal sessions (preliminary hearings, submission of evidence and final allegations) and the notification of the arbitration award. The second stage of this report is related to the description of the functions and powers of the President of Centro de Arbitragem Comercial. Firstly, it defines those powers by analyzing the statutes and rules of proceedings of the Centro de Arbitragem, drawing comparisons between the above mention and the rules of proceedings of others arbitral institutional centres, some of them are international references. The report assesses and describes the presidential powers, such as: configuration and composition of the arbitral tribunal (including arbitrator’s replacements, excuses and refusals); deadline extensions; determination of procedural rules and decision-making on any procedural incidents which arise before the constitution of the arbitral tribunal; definition of arbitration costs and fees; joinder of parties and consolidation of proceedings admission; and appointment of an emergency arbitrator. Lastly, this report analyzes some decisions delivered by the President in the respective institutional procedures which took place in the Centre.

Garland, since 1776- a unique ownership structure

The case is based on Garland, a 240 years old Portuguese family business, now owned by the Dawson family. It focuses on a decision made 50 years ago, aligned with what had been the company’s history, about the ownership rules for family members, which influences the ownership structure of the firm. It addresses the main issues about ownership in family businesses, and tackles the problem of succession planning and fair process. It contains a teaching note to support the utilization of the case in a classroom context, with learning objectives, target audience, a teaching plan, questions and proposed answers, and theory that relates to the case. It is also complemented with an epilogue and an overview of the case.

Exploring the consumer decision journey and online shoping experience through an emotional prespective

Traditional consumer decision-making models have long used quantitative research to address a link between emotional and rational behavior. However, little qualitative research has been conducted in the area of online shopping as an end-to-end experience. This study aims to provide a detailed phenomenological account of consumers’ online shopping experience and extend Mckinsey & Companys’s consumer decision journey model from an emotional perspective. Six semi-structured interviews and a focus group of nine people are analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenology Analysis and five superordinate themes emerged from the results: emotional experience, empathy and encouragement, in relation to brand preference, emotional encounters in relation to consumer satisfaction and emotional exchange and relationship with a company or brand. A model interrelating these themes is then introduced to visually represent the emotional essence of a large online purchase. This study promises to be applicable as a descriptive, and perhaps, better predictive report for understanding the complex consumer decision-making process as it relates to online consumer behavior. Future research topics are also identified.

Uncertainty in olfactory decision-making

Relationships between accuracy and speed of decision-making, or speed-accuracy tradeoffs (SAT), have been extensively studied. However, the range of SAT observed varies widely across studies for reasons that are unclear. Several explanations have been proposed, including motivation or incentive for speed vs. accuracy, species and modality but none of these hypotheses has been directly tested. An alternative explanation is that the different degrees of SAT are related to the nature of the task being performed. Here, we addressed this problem by comparing SAT in two odor-guided decision tasks that were identical except for the nature of the task uncertainty: an odor mixture categorization task, where the distinguishing information is reduced by making the stimuli more similar to each other; and an odor identification task in which the information is reduced by lowering the intensity over a range of three log steps. (...)

A multi-criteria decision support system for a routing problem in waste collection

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The non-emergency patient transport modelled as a team orienteering problem

This work presents an improved model to solve the non-emergency patients transport (NEPT) service issues given the new rules recently established in Portugal. The model follows the same principle of the Team Orienteering Problem by selecting the patients to be included in the routes attending the maximum reduction in costs when compared with individual transportation. This model establishes the best sets of patients to be transported together. The model was implemented in AMPL and a compact formulation was solved using NEOS Server. A heuristic procedure based on iteratively solving Orienteering Problems is presented, and this heuristic provides good results in terms of accuracy and computation time. Euclidean instances as well as asymmetric real data gathered from Google maps were used, and the model has a promising performance mainly with asymmetric cost matrices.

A decision support system for a waste collection vehicle routing problem

The selective collection of municipal solid waste for recycling is a very complex and expensive process, where a major issue is to perform cost-efficient waste collection routes. Despite the abundance of commercially available software for fleet management, they often lack the capability to deal properly with sequencing problems and dynamic revision of plans and schedules during process execution. Our approach to achieve better solutions for the waste collection process is to model it as a vehicle routing problem, more specifically as a team orienteering problem where capacity constraints on the vehicles are considered, as well as time windows for the waste collection points and for the vehicles. The final model is called capacitated team orienteering problem with double time windows (CTOPdTW).We developed a genetic algorithm to solve routing problems in waste collection modelled as a CTOPdTW. The results achieved suggest possible reductions of logistic costs in selective waste collection.

Decision methods applied to solve a safety problem on a waste treatment facility

To solve a health and safety problem on a waste treatment facility, different multicriteria decision methods were used, including the PROV Exponential decision method. Four alternatives and ten attributes were considered. We found a congruent solution, validated by the different methods. The AHP and the PROV Exponential decision method led us to the same options ordering, but the last method reinforced one of the options as being the best performing one, and detached the least performing option. Also, the ELECTRE I method results led to the same ordering which allowed to point the best solution with reasonable confidence. This paper demonstrates the potential of using multicriteria decision methods to support decision making on complex problems such as risk control and accidents prevention.

Safety classification using GIS in decision-making process to define priority road interventions

Given the current economic situation of the Portuguese municipalities, it is necessary to identify the priority investments in order to achieve a more efficient financial management. The classification of the road network of the municipality according to the occurrence of traffic accidents is fundamental to set priorities for road interventions. This paper presents a model for road network classification based on traffic accidents integrated in a geographic information system. Its practical application was developed through a case study in the municipality of Barcelos. An equation was defined to obtain a road safety index through the combination of the following indicators: severity, property damage only and accident costs. In addition to the road network classification, the application of the model allows to analyze the spatial coverage of accidents in order to determine the centrality and dispersion of the locations with the highest incidence of road accidents. This analysis can be further refined according to the nature of the accidents namely in collision, runoff and pedestrian crashes.

A proactive intelligent decision support system for predicting the popularity of online news

"Lecture notes in computer science series, ISSN 0302-9743, vol. 9273"

Mapeamento do uso e cobertura da terra a partir da segmentação e classificação de imagens-fração solo, sombra e vegetação derivadas do modelo linear de mistura aplicado a dados do sensor TM/Landsat5, na região do reservatório de Tucuruí - PA

Técnicas de sensoriamento remoto são fundamentais para o monitoramento das mudanças de uso da terra, principalmente em áreas extensas como a Amazônia. O mapeamento de uso da terra, geralmente é realizado por métodos de classificação manual ou digital pixel a pixel, os quais consomem muito tempo. Este estudo aborda a aplicação do modelo linear de mistura em uma imagem Landsat-TM segmentada para o mapeamento das classes de uso da terra na região do reservatório de Tucuruí-PA para os anos de 1996 e 2001.

Pervasive business intelligence platform to improve the quality of decision process in primary and secondary education – A Portuguese case study

Business Intelligence (BI) can be seen as a method that gathers information and data from information systems in order to help companies to be more accurate in their decision-making process. Traditionally BI systems were associated with the use of Data Warehouses (DW). The prime purpose of DW is to serve as a repository that stores all the relevant information required for making the correct decision. The necessity to integrate streaming data became crucial with the need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the decision process. In primary and secondary education, there is a lack of BI solutions. Due to the schools reality the main purpose of this study is to provide a Pervasive BI solution able to monitoring the schools and student data anywhere and anytime in real-time as well as disseminating the information through ubiquitous devices. The first task consisted in gathering data regarding the different choices made by the student since his enrolment in a certain school year until the end of it. Thereafter a dimensional model was developed in order to be possible building a BI platform. This paper presents the dimensional model, a set of pre-defined indicators, the Pervasive Business Intelligence characteristics and the prototype designed. The main contribution of this study was to offer to the schools a tool that could help them to make accurate decisions in real-time. Data dissemination was achieved through a localized application that can be accessed anywhere and anytime.

Step towards multiplatform framework for supporting pediatric and neonatology care unit decision process

Children are an especially vulnerable population, particularly in respect to drug administration. It is estimated that neonatal and pediatric patients are at least three times more vulnerable to damage due to adverse events and medication errors than adults are. With the development of this framework, it is intended the provision of a Clinical Decision Support System based on a prototype already tested in a real environment. The framework will include features such as preparation of Total Parenteral Nutrition prescriptions, table pediatric and neonatal emergency drugs, medical scales of morbidity and mortality, anthropometry percentiles (weight, length/height, head circumference and BMI), utilities for supporting medical decision on the treatment of neonatal jaundice and anemia and support for technical procedures and other calculators and widespread use tools. The solution in development means an extension of INTCare project. The main goal is to provide an approach to get the functionality at all times of clinical practice and outside the hospital environment for dissemination, education and simulation of hypothetical situations. The aim is also to develop an area for the study and analysis of information and extraction of knowledge from the data collected by the use of the system. This paper presents the architecture, their requirements and functionalities and a SWOT analysis of the solution proposed.