Temporal hierarchy of the corporate space

Corporate space is formed by locational decisions. Some decisions result from decisions on product lines. All decisions are made within the framework of financial and personnel resources. The frequency of variation in the framework and in the decisions (highest to lowest) is: Profitability, location, product line/presidential office, core area. This array or temporal hierarchy is derived from three industrial corporations, large by Scandinavian standards.     

Evaluation of the reliability of hydrogeological information

Ground-water is of great importance for both natural processes and economic activities. However, because of a number of causes the hydrogeological information is not clear-cut. The consideration of this ambiguity is obligatory when making scientific and economic decisions. A method to evaluate the uncertainty of hydrogeological information when making decisions is suggested. It is elaborated for the Bayersian principle of decisions with the use of statistical analysis of experimental data. The suggested approach is useful for the economic justification of additional investigations.     

Facts behind the myth of conservative rurality: major determinants of rural farmers’ innovation adoption decisions for sustainable agriculture

Even though development is about change, conservative rurality associated with the refusal of rural societies to submit to technological, livelihood and socio-cultural changes has not received adequate focus in development studies and practice. Using the case of selected rural communities in Ghana and their response to the mass cocoa spraying intervention of government, the paper discusses the determining factors that influence innovation adoption decisions of rural farmers. The study followed mixed methodology with the application of Relative Importance Index to establish the order of importance of major factors that influence farmers’ innovation adoption decisions in the study area. We argue that, innovation adoption decisions of rural societies are rooted in their awareness, cost and benefit factors and applicability of introduced technology rather than the myth of adherence to socio-cultural heritage.     

The management of sewage sludge by the water industry in England and Wales

Summary The legislative framework within which the disposal of sewage sludge is managed in England and Wales and the methods employed are outlined. Those factors which affect management decisions are analysed and consideration is given to the environmental implications of those decisions. Sewage processes and sludge disposal are considered, and the problems, especially those of heavy metal contamination, are addressed. An indication is given as to how the Water Services Companies are likely to implement the more stringent controls on disposal. Finally, the future of sludge management in England and Wales is discussed.Abbreviations BAT Best available technology - BATNEEC Best available technology not entailing excessive cost - BOD₅ Biochemical oxygen demand - BPEO Best practicable environmental option - CBI Confederation of British Industry - CEST Centre for Exploitation of Science and Technology - COD Chemical oxygen demand - CSC Customer Services Committee - DAF Dissolved air flotation - DG Director General - DoE Department of the Environment - DS Dried solids     

Journeys to the street: the complex migration geographies of Ugandan street children

Children have generally been afforded little attention in migration research or unsatisfactorily included within family migration. Although they are an important consideration in family decisions to move, children also engage in autonomous, independent migration. Further, researchers now argue for the need to situate migration within political, economic and social conditions to obtain a full understanding of why people migrate. Through the use of children-centred research methods, and in-depth interviews with key informants, this paper considers children's journeys to the street in Uganda. By integrating an analysis of Ugandan street children's spatial origins with the familial and societal contexts of their migration decisions, this research highlights the complexity of their migration. In addition, an exploration of the impact of changing social, spatial and temporal conditions on street children's movements illustrates that their journeys are far more than just single processes.     

Comparing classical statistic and machine learning models in landslide susceptibility mapping in Ardanuc (Artvin), Turkey

Natural Hazards - Landslide susceptibility maps provide crucial information that helps local authorities, public institutions, and land-use planners make the correct decisions when they are...     

A volcanic activity alert-level system for aviation: review of its development and application in Alaska

Avalanche warning services (AWS) are operated to protect communities and traffic lines in avalanche-prone regions of the Alps and other mountain ranges. In times of high avalanche danger, these services may decide to close roads or to evacuate settlements. Closing decisions are based on field observations, avalanche release statistics, and snow forecasts issued by weather services. Because of the spatial variability in the snowpack and the insufficient understanding of avalanche triggering mechanisms, closing decisions are characterized by large uncertainties and the information based on which AWS have to decide is always incomplete. In this paper, we illustrate how signal detection theory can be applied to make better use of the information at hand. The proposed framework allows the evaluation of past road closures and points to how the decision performance of AWS could be improved. To illustrate the proposed framework, we evaluate the decision performance of two AWS in Switzerland and discuss the advantages of such a formalized decision-making approach.     

Homeostatic representation for risk decision making: a novel multi-method simulation approach for evacuation under volcanic eruption

Natural Hazards - All decision-making processes are complex and include a high number of variables. Particularly, decisions related to disaster risk reduction despite having an inherent...     

How to obtain earthquake ground motions for engineering design

The earthquake ground motions that ultimately are selected for engineering design depend chiefly on the criticality of a site or structure and the engineering analyses that are to be performed. Several key steps are necessary in this selection process: They are (1) a reconnaissance to understand the hazards and obtain preliminary earthquake ground motions; (2) decisions on the application of deterministic or probabilistic methods; (3) selection of appropriate motions for requirements in design; (4) consideration of thresholds at which motions become significant for engineering; and (5) decisions on specifying appropriate earthquake ground motions for sizes of earthquakes, distances from sources, the structures, sites, and testing to be done. This paper presents five tables that show steps for evaluating these factors and for enabling the investigator to specify earthquake ground motions appropriate for engineering design.     

Comparative evaluation of GIS-based best–worst method (BWM) for emergency facility planning: perspectives from two decision-maker groups

Natural Hazards - Nowadays, organizational decisions are made collectively in decision groups to achieve more meaningful and impactful outcomes, ranging from product design, policy and strategy...     

The interplay between social welfare and competitiveness: The case of Canadian Medicare

Canadian Medicare, the government financed national health care system, is seen by many as enhancing both social welfare and competitiveness. If true, this will broaden and further existing conceptions of competitiveness in Canada and beyond. Moreover, it will have important implications for the ongoing debate in the social sciences about institutional convergence and path dependence. The central focus of this paper is to evaluate this claim: Medicare’s impact on competitiveness, evaluated by using investment attraction as a proxy, is determined through reference to detailed case analysis and the insight into investment behavior gained from interviews. This paper concludes that Medicare makes a difference for certain reinvestment decisions but no difference for location and initial investment decisions. Several implications are drawn from this finding: Medicare’s impact on reinvestment decisions may stop certain Canadian firms from investing elsewhere but likely would not attract new investment into Canada from abroad. Industries with high labor costs will extract a disproportionately large benefit from Medicare; so, this type of institution is a source of competitiveness to certain industries if not an overarching source of regional competitiveness for Canada. I conclude that, no matter the size and scope of the competitive benefit, social institutions such as Medicare must be considered when evaluating regional competitiveness, having thus far been ignored by mainstream academic competitiveness theories.     

Integrated analysis of policy options for protection of groundwater quality

This paper is directed at providing an integrated framework that a regional authority should use when assessing the potential impacts of any policy initiative directed at improving groundwater quality. In particular, a policy model is developed relying on three decision components (a farm-level production decisions model, a household decisions model and a regional policy decision model) where the objective is one of identifying the trade-offs that a regional authority will be confronted with as it strives to balance the preferences of farmers and households while endeavoring to maximize net economic welfare. The basic rule developed indicates that the regional authority must choose a policy whereby any increase (decrease) in regional income is just equal to the decrease (increase) in net benefits to households.The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the views of other U.S. Department of Agriculture staff members.     

Funding Science that Links to Decisions: Case Studies Involving Coastal Land Use Planning Projects

Many reports have noted that a significant portion of coastal science that is funded to help society address resource management issues does not actually link to decisions. A few studies and reports have offered valuable but general advice on what the funders of this science can do to better link science with decisions; there are fewer still published empirical case studies assessing the impacts of innovative funder methods for getting more science used by intended audiences. Here, we report on three case studies involving new tools and science to help land use planners better protect coastal resources. Our qualitative analysis indicates that funder efforts to bring scientists and users into greater alignment did improve the extent to which science linked to decisions. However, these cases show that funders can and should do more if the paramount motivation behind the science is to address societal problems rather than generate new knowledge. Based on these findings, we assert that funders need to focus significantly more attention and resources on the user engagement aspect of science projects, making strong user engagement methods as important as strong biophysical science or social science methods.     

A proposal for an extended typology of groundwater habitats

Many governments now require the ecological condition of groundwater ecosystems to be considered when making policy decisions. However, groundwater habitats and communities occur at different spatial scales to those at which aquifers are managed, making their inclusion in policy decisions difficult. A system of classifying groundwater ecosystems is needed to aid this, yet such a typology is currently not available. Here, a hierarchical model for a typology of groundwater habitats is suggested, which considers three spatial scales: macro, meso, and local. On a macroscale, communities are influenced by biogeographic characteristics; at a mesoscale they are influenced by the hydrogeological type of the aquifer; and on local scale by the hydrological exchange with surface water and hence the oxygen and nutrient supply. Consequently, groundwater habitats are assumed to be defined by biogeographic particularities, the hydrogeological aquifer type and by localized hydrological exchange with surface water. By adopting a ‘groundwater habitat typology’, groundwater biologists may be able to work with hydrogeologists to assist in the sustainable management of groundwater by predicting groundwater biodiversity and the distribution of important or endangered species. The typology proposed here is a first step towards achieving this goal.     

Visualization of uncertainty in natural hazards assessments using an interactive cartographic information system

Natural hazard assessments are always subject to uncertainties due to missing knowledge about the complexity of hazardous processes as well as their natural variability. Decision-makers in the field of natural hazard management need to understand the concept, components, sources, and implications of existing uncertainties in order to reach informed and transparent decisions. Until now, however, only few hazard maps include uncertainty visualizations which would be much needed for an enhanced communication among experts and decision-makers in order to make informed decisions possible. In this paper, an analysis of how uncertainty is currently treated and communicated by Swiss natural hazards experts is presented. The conducted expert survey confirmed that the communication of uncertainty has to be enhanced, possibly with the help of uncertainty visualizations. However, in order to visualize the spatial characteristics of uncertainty, existing uncertainties need to be quantified. This challenge is addressed by the exemplary simulation of a snow avalanche event using a deterministic model and quantified uncertainties with a sensitivity analysis. Suitable visualization methods for the resulting spatial variability of the uncertainties are suggested, and the advantages and disadvantages of their implementation in an interactive cartographic information system are discussed.     

大数据开创地学研究新途径：全数据挖掘提高研究精度——《地质科学》2018“纪念孙枢先生地质大数据专题”代序

随着计算机、互联网和计算技术的迅猛发展,人类已经进入大数据时代,大数据也将改变人们对自然的理解和认知方式,改变科学研究的思想和方法,成为科学研究的新引擎。大数据体量之大并非其必要条件,通过对大量数据的挖掘,研究问题并做出正确决策才是大数据的精髓所在。大数据可以在社会各个领域广泛使用,大数据是通过对大量数据的分析研究问题、做出决策,这样一个概念、一种思想同时也是一种研究方法。大数据带给我们3 个颠覆性的观念改变：大数据研究的对象是全部数据（全样本,全变量）取代传统统计学的随机抽样;大数据研究的方法、手段是查明数据间相关关系取代传统的追求因果关系的研究方法;大数据研究的特点是取向高概率做出决策取代追求精确无误。因此,大数据的研究结果更加真实、有效、精确。     

基于对偶理论的消费者行为选择问题研究

众所周知,消费者行为理论是微观经济学研究的重要内容之一.消费者在收入有限的情况下,面对众多的商品如何进行选择,使其尽可能得到大的＂满足＂;在保持某一效用水平不变时,面对众多的商品如何进行选择,使其总支出最小.基于这两个问题,利用数学规划中的对偶理论对其进行经济学分析,得出了若干相关结论.从而拓宽了数学规划理论的应用领域,对消费者行为的理性选择具有重要的理论指导意义.     

地质工作项目进展滞后现象分析及对策建议

地勘基金项目进展滞后现象已较普遍,滞后较重项目占有相当比例,给项目管理工作带来很大困难,也严重影响项目质量和后续工作安排,在充分分析原因后,提出改进建议,为决策部门提供依据。     

Sustainable urban environments: The case of Alexandra

The long-term benefits of reconstruction and development in South Africa can succeed only if the environmental considerations are integrated into policy decisions. The proper management of the country's valuable renewable and non-renewable resources is essential for future prosperity. The environments of urban renewal projects need to be effectively managed. A case study of urban upgrading in Alexandra, Johannesburg illustrates the vital importance of integrating environmental components into reconstruction and development programmes in South Africa.     

略论统计分析方法的灵活运用

统计分析是统计工作参与企业管理和提供领导决策最有成效的手段之一。统计分析有指数因素分析法和回归预测分析法。通过对统计数字和统计资料进行全面系统的分析．以揭示经济现象的本质和规律性，对提高企业管理水平和企业的经济效益，具有重要作用。