Measuring sustainable development in the education area using multi-criteria methods: a case study
16 Aug 2019-Central European Journal of Operations Research (Springer Berlin Heidelberg)-Vol. 28, Iss: 4, pp 1219-1241
TL;DR: This work proposes a new methodological framework based on extended TOPSIS procedure, which takes into account EU targets and/or national targets in building positive ideal solution and negative ideal solution in integrated sustainability assessment from the target point of view.
Abstract: Sustainability is a holistic and complex multi-dimensional concept comprising economic, social and environmental issues. The EU Sustainable Development Goals’ indicator set, developed by European Commission, is implemented online in Eurostat’s database and constitutes the basis for assessing the level of sustainability assessment in different areas. The integration of the sustainability indicators was carried out in many studies by using the multi-criteria techniques. This work proposes a new methodological framework based on extended TOPSIS procedure, which takes into account EU targets and/or national targets in building positive ideal solution and negative ideal solution. This algorithm allows compensatory and non-compensatory approach in integrated sustainability assessment from the target point of view. This framework has been applied to measure sustainable development in the area of education in 28 EU countries in 2015. The results of this research also illustrate the complexity of measuring sustainable development, where multiple sustainability criteria and targets are considered.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explain how the latest international handbook on environmental accounting, the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting or SEEA ( United Nations et al., 2003), can be used to measure weak and strong sustainability.
Abstract: In this paper, we explain how the latest international handbook on environmental accounting, the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting or SEEA (United Nations et al., 2003), can be used to measure weak and strong sustainability. We emphasise the importance of understanding the conceptual differences between weak and strong sustainability. We then outline what we consider to be current best practice in measurement, all the time flagging the relationship between our discussion and that of the SEEA-2003. This is an important task in our view, because, despite covering a very wide range of relevant conceptual and empirical issues, the handbook is by design not meant to provide clear guidelines for the purpose of measuring sustainability in either its weak or strong version.
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TL;DR: In this article , the authors considered 35 indicators related to the economic SDGs (SDG 7, SDG 8, SDD 9, SDGs 11 and SDG 12) considering available data from 27 European countries in order to identify an aggregate value of sustainability in accordance with the multicriteria analysis.
30 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper , a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is presented to compare the sustainability of 103 Italian cities through the evaluation of 45 SDGs indicators, ranking cities on the base of their performance.
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a new approach based on an extended Hellwig method is proposed to evaluate the sustainable development performance of EU countries on the national level by taking into consideration EU targets and/or national targets in building patterns of development.
Abstract: Benchmarking the analysis of countries' performance in terms of sustainable development helps to understand the success factors of countries that over perform and to target priority issues of others with lower performance. However, assessing sustainable development comes with methodological challenges, including indicator standardization, aggregation and weighting. Our study significantly contributes to the measure of sustainable development by providing a new approach based on an extended Hellwig method. After describing the main limitations of existing methodologies, this paper's aim is twofold. First, we show that the proposed analytical framework allows for comparing the sustainable performance of EU countries on the national level. The extended Hellwig method takes into consideration EU targets and/or national targets in building patterns of development. Second, this framework is tested as a part of the evaluation of the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy in the education area. The results obtained using the extended Hellwig method were compared with those obtained by means of the Education Index, TOPSIS and Ward technique. Our analysis showed the significant disparities in the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy recommendations in the education area in 2015.
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Book•
01 Jan 1976TL;DR: In this article, a confused decision maker, who wishes to make a reasonable and responsible choice among alternatives, can systematically probe his true feelings in order to make those critically important, vexing trade-offs between incommensurable objectives.
Abstract: Many of the complex problems faced by decision makers involve multiple conflicting objectives. This book describes how a confused decision maker, who wishes to make a reasonable and responsible choice among alternatives, can systematically probe his true feelings in order to make those critically important, vexing trade-offs between incommensurable objectives. The theory is illustrated by many real concrete examples taken from a host of disciplinary settings. The standard approach in decision theory or decision analysis specifies a simplified single objective like monetary return to maximise. By generalising from the single objective case to the multiple objective case, this book considerably widens the range of applicability of decision analysis.
8,895 citations
Book•
01 Mar 1981
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a classification of MADM methods by data type and propose a ranking method based on the degree of similarity of the MADM method to the original MADM algorithm.
Abstract: I. Introduction.- II. Multiple Attribute Decision Making - An Overview.- 2.1 Basics and Concepts.- 2.2 Classifications of MADM Methods.- 2.2.1 Classification by Information.- 2.2.2 Classification by Solution Aimed At.- 2.2.3 Classification by Data Type.- 2.3 Description of MADM Methods.- Method (1): DOMINANCE.- Method (2): MAXIMIN.- Method (3): MAXIMAX.- Method (4): CONJUNCTIVE METHOD.- Method (5): DISJUNCTIVE METHOD.- Method (6): LEXICOGRAPHIC METHOD.- Method (7): LEXICOGRAPHIC SEMIORDER METHOD.- Method (8): ELIMINATION BY ASPECTS (EBA).- Method (9): LINEAR ASSIGNMENT METHOD (LAM).- Method (10): SIMPLE ADDITIVE WEIGHTING METHOD (SAW).- Method (11): ELECTRE (Elimination et Choice Translating Reality).- Method (12): TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution).- Method (13): WEIGHTED PRODUCT METHOD.- Method (14): DISTANCE FROM TARGET METHOD.- III. Fuzzy Sets and their Operations.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Basics of Fuzzy Sets.- 3.2.1 Definition of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2 Basic Concepts of Fuzzy Sets.- 3.2.2.1 Complement of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.2 Support of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.3 ?-cut of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.4 Convexity of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.5 Normality of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.6 Cardinality of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.2.2.7 The mth Power of a Fuzzy Set.- 3.3 Set-Theoretic Operations with Fuzzy Sets.- 3.3.1 No Compensation Operators.- 3.3.1.1 The Min Operator.- 3.3.2 Compensation-Min Operators.- 3.3.2.1 Algebraic Product.- 3.3.2.2 Bounded Product.- 3.3.2.3 Hamacher's Min Operator.- 3.3.2.4 Yager's Min Operator.- 3.3.2.5 Dubois and Prade's Min Operator.- 3.3.3 Full Compensation Operators.- 3.3.3.1 The Max Operator.- 3.3.4 Compensation-Max Operators.- 3.3.4.1 Algebraic Sum.- 3.3.4.2 Bounded Sum.- 3.3.4.3 Hamacher's Max Operator.- 3.3.4.4 Yager's Max Operator.- 3.3.4.5 Dubois and Prade's Max Operator.- 3.3.5 General Compensation Operators.- 3.3.5.1 Zimmermann and Zysno's ? Operator.- 3.3.6 Selecting Appropriate Operators.- 3.4 The Extension Principle and Fuzzy Arithmetics.- 3.4.1 The Extension Principle.- 3.4.2 Fuzzy Arithmetics.- 3.4.2.1 Fuzzy Number.- 3.4.2.2 Addition of Fuzzy Numbers.- 3.4.2.3 Subtraction of Fuzzy Numbers.- 3.4.2.4 Multiplication of Fuzzy Numbers.- 3.4.2.5 Division of Fuzzy Numbers.- 3.4.2.6 Fuzzy Max and Fuzzy Min.- 3.4.3 Special Fuzzy Numbers.- 3.4.3.1 L-R Fuzzy Number.- 3.4.3.2 Triangular (or Trapezoidal) Fuzzy Number.- 3.4.3.3 Proof of Formulas.- 3.4.3.3.1 The Image of Fuzzy Number N.- 3.4.3.3.2 The Inverse of Fuzzy Number N.- 3.4.3.3.3 Addition and Subtraction.- 3.4.3.3.4 Multiplication and Division.- 3.5 Conclusions.- IV. Fuzzy Ranking Methods.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Ranking Using Degree of Optimality.- 4.2.1 Baas and Kwakernaak's Approach.- 4.2.2 Watson et al.'s Approach.- 4.2.3 Baldwin and Guild's Approach.- 4.3 Ranking Using Hamming Distance.- 4.3.1 Yager's Approach.- 4.3.2 Kerre's Approach.- 4.3.3 Nakamura's Approach.- 4.3.4 Kolodziejczyk's Approach.- 4.4 Ranking Using ?-Cuts.- 4.4.1 Adamo's Approach.- 4.4.2 Buckley and Chanas' Approach.- 4.4.3 Mabuchi's Approach.- 4.5 Ranking Using Comparison Function.- 4.5.1 Dubois and Prade's Approach.- 4.5.2 Tsukamoto et al.'s Approach.- 4.5.3 Delgado et al.'s Approach.- 4.6 Ranking Using Fuzzy Mean and Spread.- 4.6.1 Lee and Li's Approach.- 4.7 Ranking Using Proportion to The Ideal.- 4.7.1 McCahone's Approach.- 4.8 Ranking Using Left and Right Scores.- 4.8.1 Jain's Approach.- 4.8.2 Chen's Approach.- 4.8.3 Chen and Hwang's Approach.- 4.9 Ranking with Centroid Index.- 4.9.1 Yager's Centroid Index.- 4.9.2 Murakami et al.'s Approach.- 4.10 Ranking Using Area Measurement.- 4.10.1 Yager's Approach.- 4.11 Linguistic Ranking Methods.- 4.11.1 Efstathiou and Tong's Approach.- 4.11.2 Tong and Bonissone's Approach.- V. Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making Methods.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Fuzzy Simple Additive Weighting Methods.- 5.2.1 Baas and Kwakernaak's Approach.- 5.2.2 Kwakernaak's Approach.- 5.2.3 Dubois and Prade's Approach.- 5.2.4 Cheng and McInnis's Approach.- 5.2.5 Bonissone's Approach.- 5.3 Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) Methods.- 5.3.1 Saaty's AHP Approach.- 5.3.2 Laarhoven and Pedrycz's Approach.- 5.3.3 Buckley's Approach.- 5.4 Fuzzy Conjunctive/Disjunctive Method.- 5.4.1 Dubois, Prade, and Testemale's Approach.- 5.5 Heuristic MAUF Approach.- 5.6 Negi's Approach.- 5.7 Fuzzy Outranking Methods.- 5.7.1 Roy's Approach.- 5.7.2 Siskos et al.'s Approach.- 5.7.3 Brans et al.'s Approach.- 5.7.4 Takeda's Approach.- 5.8 Maximin Methods.- 5.8.1 Gellman and Zadeh's Approach.- 5.8.2 Yager's Approach.- 5.9 A New Approach to Fuzzy MADM Problems.- 5.9.1 Converting Linguistic Terms to Fuzzy Numbers.- 5.9.2 Converting Fuzzy Numbers to Crisp Scores.- 5.9.3 The Algorithm.- VI. Concluding Remarks.- 6.1 MADM Problems and Fuzzy Sets.- 6.2 On Existing MADM Solution Methods.- 6.2.1 Classical Methods for MADM Problems.- 6.2.2 Fuzzy Methods for MADM Problems.- 6.2.2.1 Fuzzy Ranking Methods.- 6.2.2.2 Fuzzy MADM Methods.- 6.3 Critiques of the Existing Fuzzy Methods.- 6.3.1 Size of Problem.- 6.3.2 Fuzzy vs. Crisp Data.- 6.4 A New Approach to Fuzzy MADM Problem Solving.- 6.4.1 Semantic Modeling of Linguistic Terms.- 6.4.2 Fuzzy Scoring System.- 6.4.3 The Solution.- 6.4.4 The Advantages of the New Approach.- 6.5 Other Multiple Criteria Decision Making Methods.- 6.5.1 Multiple Objective Decision Making Methods.- 6.5.2 Methods of Group Decision Making under Multiple Criteria.- 6.5.2.1 Social Choice Theory.- 6.5.2.2 Experts Judgement/Group Participation.- 6.5.2.3 Game Theory.- 6.6 On Future Studies.- 6.6.1 Semantics of Linguistic Terms.- 6.6.2 Fuzzy Ranking Methods.- 6.6.3 Fuzzy MADM Methods.- 6.6.4 MADM Expert Decision Support Systems.- VII. Bibliography.
8,629 citations
TL;DR: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a theory of measurement through pairwise comparisons and relies on the judgements of experts to derive priority scales that measure intangibles in relative terms.
Abstract: Decisions involve many intangibles that need to be traded off To do that, they have to be measured along side tangibles whose measurements must also be evaluated as to, how well, they serve the objectives of the decision maker The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a theory of measurement through pairwise comparisons and relies on the judgements of experts to derive priority scales It is these scales that measure intangibles in relative terms The comparisons are made using a scale of absolute judgements that represents, how much more, one element dominates another with respect to a given attribute The judgements may be inconsistent, and how to measure inconsistency and improve the judgements, when possible to obtain better consistency is a concern of the AHP The derived priority scales are synthesised by multiplying them by the priority of their parent nodes and adding for all such nodes An illustration is included
6,787 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as discussed by the authors is a theory of measurement through pairwise comparisons and relies on the judgements of experts to derive priority scales, these scales are these scales that measure intangibles in relative terms.
5,663 citations