Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion

This paper introduces many objective robust decision making (MORDM). MORDM combines concepts and methods from many objective evolutionary optimization and robust decision making (RDM), along with extensive use of interactive visual analytics, to facilitate the management of complex environmental systems. Many objective evolutionary search is used to generate alternatives for complex planning problems, enabling the discovery of the key tradeoffs among planning objectives. RDM then determines the robustness of planning alternatives to deeply uncertain future conditions and facilitates decision makers' selection of promising candidate solutions. MORDM tests each solution under the ensemble of future extreme states of the world (SOW). Interactive visual analytics are used to explore whether solutions of interest are robust to a wide range of plausible future conditions (i.e., assessment of their Pareto satisficing behavior in alternative SOW). Scenario discovery methods that use statistical data mining algorithms are then used to identify what assumptions and system conditions strongly influence the cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of the robust alternatives. The framework is demonstrated using a case study that examines a single city's water supply in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) in Texas, USA. Results suggest that including robustness as a decision criterion can dramatically change the formulation of complex environmental management problems as well as the negotiated selection of candidate alternatives to implement. MORDM also allows decision makers to characterize the most important vulnerabilities for their systems, which should be the focus of ex post monitoring and identification of triggers for adaptive management.

Many objective robust decision making for complex environmental systems undergoing change

Many Objective Robust Decision Making for Complex Environmental Systems Undergoing Change

This study compares two widely used approaches for robustness analysis of decision problems: the info-gap method originally developed by Ben-Haim and the robust decision making (RDM) approach originally developed by Lempert, Popper, and Bankes. The study uses each approach to evaluate alternative paths for climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions given the potential for nonlinear threshold responses in the climate system, significant uncertainty about such a threshold response and a variety of other key parameters, as well as the ability to learn about any threshold responses over time. Info-gap and RDM share many similarities. Both represent uncertainty as sets of multiple plausible futures, and both seek to identify robust strategies whose performance is insensitive to uncertainties. Yet they also exhibit important differences, as they arrange their analyses in different orders, treat losses and gains in different ways, and take different approaches to imprecise probabilistic information. The study finds that the two approaches reach similar but not identical policy recommendations and that their differing attributes raise important questions about their appropriate roles in decision support applications. The comparison not only improves understanding of these specific methods, it also suggests some broader insights into robustness approaches and a framework for comparing them.

Robust climate policies under uncertainty: a comparison of robust decision making and info-gap methods.

Bilingual education in universities and colleges is viewed as an effective and feasible measure to develop talented graduates more competent in the international market.Considering the present situation of bilingual teaching in Modern Control Theory,we pointed out the current problems restricting the teaching method in the four aspects: teaching mode in class,teacher training,teaching materials and English proficiency of students.To improve the efficiency of bilingual teaching in Modern Control Theory,we proposed some constructive and available approaches after we presented and analyzed each of these problems.

The bilingual education of

This book discusses the opportunities and risks the government of Israel faces in shifting to a greater reliance on domestic and imported natural gas. By applying newly developed methods for strategic planning and decisionmaking under deep uncertainty, the analysis seeks to help the Israeli government engage in managed change by choosing robust strategies that minimize potential consequences of relying more heavily on natural gas.

/pdf/natural-gas-and-israel-s-energy-future-near-term-decisions-19spl89150.pdf

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future: Near-Term Decisions from a Strategic Perspective

Israel must employ strategic alternatives to make the best use of domestic and imported natural gas This report explores natural gas-utilization and supply-infrastructure strategies in the face of extreme uncertainty and potentially large consequences; favorable and unfavorable future environments; and ways to achieve an energy future that reduces Israelis' exposure to vulnerabilities and risks

/pdf/natural-gas-and-israel-s-energy-future-a-strategic-analysis-3xdwrj4d1v.pdf

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future: A Strategic Analysis Under Conditions of Deep Uncertainty

This PDF document was made available from rand.org as a public service of the RAND Corporation. 

Israel has changed dramatically since its founding, especially in the past two decades. There is a public interest in having the police provide a type and level of service that keeps pace with these changes. Despite relatively low crime rates, the public in Israel still perceives threats to personal security and expresses concern over quality of police service. This research developed, analyzed, and evaluated approaches to address issues of public perceptions and public trust in the police, benchmarking the police against other police organizations, performance measurement, as well as addressing deterrence and crime prevention concerns.

Effective Policing for 21st-Century Israel

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future

Knowledge City is a planned environmentally and technologically advanced city in China's Guangzhou Development District. This report introduces innovation systems and clusters, describes the factors that led to the successes of Silicon Valley, the life sciences corridor in Maryland, and the Israeli technology cluster, and uses findings from those cases and other research to outline the steps GDD will need to take to make Knowledge City a success.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR1293.pdf

Steven W. Popper

Papers

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future: Near-Term Decisions from a Strategic Perspective

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future: A Strategic Analysis Under Conditions of Deep Uncertainty

Effective Policing for 21st-Century Israel

Natural Gas and Israel's Energy Future

Creating an Innovation System for Knowledge City