Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Or Should I Wait and See? Influences on Wildfire Evacuation Decisions

As climate change has contributed to longer fire seasons and populations living in fire‐prone ecosystems increase, wildfires have begun to affect a growing number of people. As a result, interest in understanding the wildfire evacuation decision process has increased. Of particular interest is understanding why some people leave early, some choose to stay and defend their homes, and others wait to assess conditions before making a final decision. Individuals who tend to wait and see are of particular concern given the dangers of late evacuation. To understand what factors might influence different decisions, we surveyed homeowners in three areas in the United States that recently experienced a wildfire. The Protective Action Decision Model was used to identify a suite of factors previously identified as potentially relevant to evacuation decisions. Our results indicate that different beliefs about the efficacy of a particular response or action (evacuating or staying to defend), differences in risk attitudes, and emphasis on different cues to act (e.g., official warnings, environmental cues) are key factors underlying different responses. Further, latent class analysis indicates there are two general classes of individuals: those inclined to evacuate and those inclined to stay, and that a substantial portion of each class falls into the wait and see category.     

Industry-Dominated Science Advisory Boards Are Perceived To Be Legitimate…But Only When They Recommend More Stringent Risk Management Policies

In 2017, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was criticized for two controversial directives that restricted the eligibility of academic scientists to serve on the agency's key science advisory boards (SABs). The EPA portrayed these directives as necessary to ensure the integrity of the SAB. Critics portrayed them as a tactic by the agency to advance a more industry-friendly deregulatory agenda. With this backdrop, this research examined board composition and its effect on the perceived legitimacy of risk management recommendations by the SAB. In an experiment, we presented participants with hypothetical EPA SABs composed of different proportions of academic and industry scientists. We then asked participants to rate their satisfaction with, and the legitimacy of, these boards in light of their decisions in scenarios based on actual EPA SAB deliberations. Participants perceived higher levels of satisfaction and legitimacy when SABs made more stringent risk management recommendations. While SABs dominated by industry scientists were perceived to be more strongly motivated to protect business interests, we found no effect of board composition on perceptions of satisfaction and legitimacy. These results are consistent with prior research on decision quality that suggests people use normative outcomes as a heuristic for assessing the quality of deliberations. Moreover, these results suggest that members of the public are supportive of federal SABs regardless of their composition, but only if they take actions that are consistent with normative expectations.     

Evaluating the life cycle of a building: A multivariant and multiple criteria approach

This paper considers the application of methodology for the multivariant design and multiple criteria analysis of the life cycle of a building. The theoretical basis of the methodology is developed. A proposed methodology allows everyone (i.e. client, investor, contractor, etc.), who has to make the decisions, to design alternatives of the building life cycle and to evaluate its qualitative and quantitative aspects. This approach, in which various criteria can be employed, is intended to support the decision making on a building's life cycle selection and increase the efficiency of the resolution process. The procedure of the evaluating of a building's life cycle is discussed using an example.     

Integrating multicriteria decision analysis and scenario planning—Review and extension

Scenario planning and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are two key management science tools used in strategic planning. In this paper, we explore the integration of these two approaches in a coherent manner, recognizing that each adds value to the implementation of the other. Various approaches that have been adopted for such integration are reviewed, with a primary focus on the process of constructing preferences both within and between scenarios. Biases that may be introduced by inappropriate assumptions during such processes are identified, and used to motivate a framework for integrating MCDA and scenario thinking, based on applying MCDA concepts across a range of “metacriteria” (combinations of scenarios and primary criteria). Within this framework, preferences according to each primary criterion can be expressed in the context of different scenarios. The paper concludes with a hypothetical but non-trivial example of agricultural policy planning in a developing country.     

Nature-inspired metaheuristics for multiobjective activity crashing

Many project tasks and manufacturing processes consist of interdependent time-related activities that can be represented as networks. Deciding which of these sub-processes should receive extra resources to speed up the whole network (i.e., where activity crashing should be applied) usually involves the pursuit of multiple objectives amid a lack of a priori preference information. A common decision support approach lies in first determining efficient combinations of activity crashing measures and then pursuing an interactive exploration of this space. As it is impossible to exactly solve the underlying multiobjective combinatorial optimization problem within a reasonable computation time for real-world problems, we have developed proper solution procedures based on three major (nature-inspired) metaheuristics. This paper describes these implementations, discusses their strengths, and provides results from computational experiments.     

Predicting Loss of Life in Cases of Dam Failure and Flash Flood

This paper improves upon previous attempts to predict loss of life (LOL) from severe flooding events. An expression for LOL in terms of warning time (WT), the size of the population at risk (PAR), and the forcefulness of the flood waters (Force) is derived from the historical record of dam failures and flash flood cases via logistic regression. There is no evidence for an effect of prior flooding experience or an interaction between WT and PAR, as has been suggested elsewhere. Guidelines are suggested for the proper use of the final equations and the findings are discussed in relation to a theoretical model of flood fatalities.     

基于Agent的情感劝说的决策过程及模型研究

Agent具有情感后进行的劝说决策会更加理性,而现有研究还不够全面深入。针对此问题,首先结合形式逻辑理论,定义了基于Agent的情感劝说及其决策过程,并将基于Agent的情感劝说的决策过程划分为评价情感劝说行为、更新情感劝说状态、调整情感劝说目标、产生情感劝说行为四个阶段;其次针对这四个阶段,结合OCC情感模型和PAD心情模型,运用多属性效用理论,引入情感淡化因子和情感评价因子,定义了Agent情感触发函数,建立了八种Agent基本情感与劝说目标的映射关系,将Agent的情感劝说行为分为奖励型、申辩型、威胁型和反辩型四类,分别构建了相应的决策模型,从而构成了更加完整和合理的基于Agent的情感劝说的决策过程模型;最后通过算例证明了模型的合理性和有效性。