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Developing a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) for decision making under uncertainty
| Title: | Developing a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) for decision making under uncertainty. |
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| Name(s): |
Mokhtari, Soroush, Author Abdel-Aty, Mohamed, Committee Chair Madani Larijani, Kaveh, Committee CoChair Wang, Dingbao, Committee Member Xanthopoulos, Petros, Committee Member University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor |
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| Type of Resource: | text | |
| Date Issued: | 2013 | |
| Publisher: | University of Central Florida | |
| Language(s): | English | |
| Abstract/Description: | Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problems are often associated with tradeoffs between performances of the available alternative solutions under decision making criteria. These problems become more complex when performances are associated with uncertainty. This study proposes a stochastic MCDM procedure that can handle uncertainty in MCDM problems. The proposed method coverts a stochastic MCDM problem into many deterministic ones through a Monte-Carlo (MC) selection. Each deterministic problem is then solved using a range of MCDM methods and the ranking order of the alternatives is established for each deterministic MCDM. The final ranking of the alternatives can be determined based on winning probabilities and ranking distribution of the alternatives. Ranking probability distributions can help the decision-maker understand the risk associated with the overall ranking of the options. Therefore, the final selection of the best alternative can be affected by the risk tolerance of the decision-makers. A Group Decision Support System (GDSS) is developed here with a user-friendly interface to facilitate the application of the proposed MC-MCDM approach in real-world multi-participant decision making for an average user. The GDSS uses a range of decision making methods to increase the robustness of the decision analysis outputs and to help understand the sensitivity of the results to level of cooperation among the decision-makers. The decision analysis methods included in the GDSS are: 1) conventional MCDM methods (Maximin, Lexicographic, TOPSIS, SAW and Dominance), appropriate when there is a high cooperation level among the decision-makers; 2) social choice rules or voting methods (Condorcet Choice, Borda scoring, Plurality, Anti-Plurality, Median Voting, Hare System of voting, Majoritarian Compromise ,and Condorcet Practical), appropriate for cases with medium cooperation level among the decision-makers; and 3) Fallback Bargaining methods (Unanimity, Q-Approval and Fallback Bargaining with Impasse), appropriate for cases with non-cooperative decision-makers. To underline the utility of the proposed method and the developed GDSS in providing valuable insights into real-world hydro-environmental group decision making, the GDSS is applied to a benchmark example, namely the California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta decision making problem. The implications of GDSS' outputs (winning probabilities and ranking distributions) are discussed. Findings are compared with those of previous studies, which used other methods to solve this problem, to highlight the sensitivity of the results to the choice of decision analysis methods and/or different cooperation levels among the decision-makers. | |
| Identifier: | CFE0004723 (IID), ucf:49821 (fedora) | |
| Note(s): |
2013-05-01 M.S. Engineering and Computer Science, Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Masters This record was generated from author submitted information. |
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| Subject(s): | Multi-Criteria Decision Making -- Decision Support System -- Uncertainty -- GDSS -- Monte-Carlo -- Reliability assessment -- Robust decision making | |
| Persistent Link to This Record: | http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004723 | |
| Restrictions on Access: | public 2013-05-15 | |
| Host Institution: | UCF |
