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This paper presents a case of interval decision analysis using a tool that takes advantage of interval probabilities, values, and criteria weights and is capable of handling comparative relations, i.e., interval statements on differences between variables. These statements are represented as constraints to the solution set and evaluated using a number of different evaluation methods, each serving the decision maker with different insights of the decision problem. We demonstrate the applicability of the tool in a case study of three public infrastructure decision problems that had remained unresolved for a number of years.

We present a case study in which a decision support method (ADL) was employed by a local government in order to guide and aid decisions on three complicated and politically infected issues which had remained unresolved for many years. The research inquiry was whether a well-defined and openly accessible method would aid a common understanding of the decision problems, and whether people would be able to accept a clearly motivated decision even if politically they preferred a different option. The ADL method has been used in several public sector projects ranging from very large purchasing decisions to the selection of national policies, but this test case was novel in that it involved close inspection by the public. This case was also devised as a test of new methods for potential inclusion into normal practices. The post-case analysis shows mixed understanding of and belief in the method. The results raise issues concerning both the potential for decision support methods in a political context and the nature of political decision making. ; PI - Publika Informationssystem

AbstractTo enhance preparedness for diverse pandemic situations we aim to predict the performance of various pharmaceutical intervention strategies. We gathered domain experts and ran a series of decision conferences where a scenario‐based multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model was interactively defined and implemented. Assuming an influenza pandemic, a micro simulation model was used to estimate societal health impact, a health‐economic model was used to estimate economic losses, and expert preferences were elicited to define trade‐offs between multiple criteria and synthesize various estimates. Sensitivity analysis to address various forms of uncertainty was also conducted. Nine intervention strategies, including the baseline "no interventions" strategy, were evaluated and ranked under five pandemic scenarios for Sweden's population. We conclude that a scenario‐based MCDA approach relying on multiple models for assessment of consequences is instrumental in defining robust interventions and support decision‐making at the pre‐pandemic and pandemic situations.

AbstractUrban planning typically involves multiple actors and stakeholders with conflicting opinions and diverging preferences. The proposed development plans and actions greatly affect the quality of life of the local community at different spatial scales and time horizons. Consequently, it is important for decision-makers to understand and analyse the conflicting needs and priorities of the local community. This paper presents a decision analytic framework for evaluating stakeholder conflicts in urban planning. First, the stakeholders state their preferences regarding the actions in terms of a set of criteria and estimate the weight of each criterion. Then, a conflict index and overall value for each action is calculated. Next, a set of Pareto efficient portfolios of actions are generated by solving an optimization problem with different levels of conflict as a resource constraint. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the actions is performed. The framework is demonstrated using real-world survey data collected in the municipality of Upplands Väsby, Sweden.

AbstractThis paper reports upon the deliverables and learnings from a project within decision analysis for participatory planning and policy analysis on the municipal level. The project aimed to develop and utilize an online multicriteria decision analysis tool for evaluations of policy alternatives with respect to municipal commercial development policies, acknowledging the objectives and preferences from various local and national stakeholders. The tool itself relied solely on that the users supplied cardinal ranking statements in the appraisal of alternatives and in the ranking of criteria and the surrounding method has been used in three cases. In each case, several significant insights obtained in the decision‐modelling workshops were emphasized by the participants. The better understanding of the general decision situation, preference structures, and possible strategies was highly appreciated. The perception was also that this enabled a better understanding of conflicting issues, even when these were not entirely resolved.

Since the conceptualization of bounded rationality by Herbert Simon (1947), management scholars started investigating how people—managers and entrepreneurs—really make decisions within (and for) organizations [...]

We present a thematic art project in a suburb of Stockholm as a means to generate problem areas in focus for a research project on multimodal communication and democratic decision-making. Through art we play with different techniques and ideas about democracy in a particular location in order to obtain a better understanding of the citizens and their environments. Artists' actions, installations and mediations create a direct confrontation with the place and its inhabitants, and explore the dynamic relationships that constitute its context. The common denominator for the invited artists is that they work with situation-specific emancipatory art that in various ways relates to the physical and mediated public sphere. The art project Performing Structure is a collaborative process where the artists develop the project and take part in the contextualization in collaboration with researchers. This is achieved partly through a shared memory work on the theme of power / powerlessness. From this feminist research practice notions of democracy is examined in order to investigate, expose, enhance and / or remodel relations of the site. The aim with the art project is to put the site and the individual in a web of geographical, social and economic contexts. The aim is also to contribute to a debate on artistic research by showing how art can be viewed as a qualitative method. Through the practice of the memory work method we contribute to the development of this methodology, and map out a space for art in the field of science.

Critical infrastructures become more and more entangled and rely extensively on information technology. Adeeper insight into the relationships between critical infrastructures enables the actors involved to more quicklyunderstand the severity of information technology disruptions and to identify robust cross-functional mitigatingactions. This study illustrates how and why disruptions in the payment system in Sweden could create cascadingeffects in other critical infrastructures with potentially severe consequences for many citizens, governmentinstitutions and companies. Data from document studies, interviews and workshops with field experts revealseven challenges for collective cross-functional critical infrastructure resilience that need to be dealt with: 1)Shortage of food, fuel, cash, medicine; 2) Limited capacity of alternative payment solutions; 3) Cities are morevulnerable than the countryside; 4) Economically vulnerable groups in society are more severely affected; 5)Trust maintenance needs; 6) Crisis communication needs; 7) Fragmentation of responsibility for criticalinfrastructures across many actors.

Critical infrastructures become more and more entangled and rely extensively on information technology. A deeper insight into the relationships between critical infrastructures enables the actors involved to more quickly understand the severity of information technology disruptions and to identify robust cross-functional mitigating actions. This study illustrates how and why disruptions in the payment system in Sweden could create cascading effects in other critical infrastructures with potentially severe consequences for many citizens, government institutions and companies. Data from document studies, interviews and workshops with field experts reveal seven challenges for collective cross-functional critical infrastructure resilience that need to be dealt with: 1) Shortage of food, fuel, cash, medicine; 2) Limited capacity of alternative payment solutions; 3) Cities are more vulnerable than the countryside; 4) Economically vulnerable groups in society are more severely affected; 5) Trust maintenance needs; 6) Crisis communication needs; 7) Fragmentation of responsibility for critical infrastructures across many actors.

Critical infrastructures become more and more entangled and rely extensively on information technology. A deeper insight into the relationships between critical infrastructures enables the actors involved to more quickly understand the severity of information technology disruptions and to identify robust cross-functional mitigating actions. This study illustrates how and why disruptions in the payment system in Sweden could create cascading effects in other critical infrastructures with potentially severe consequences for many citizens, government institutions and companies. Data from document studies, interviews and workshops with field experts reveal seven challenges for collective cross-functional critical infrastructure resilience that need to be dealt with: 1) Shortage of food, fuel, cash, medicine; 2) Limited capacity of alternative payment solutions; 3) Cities are more vulnerable than the countryside; 4) Economically vulnerable groups in society are more severely affected; 5) Trust maintenance needs; 6) Crisis communication needs; 7) Fragmentation of responsibility for critical infrastructures across many actors.

"What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens' input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools.
This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University.
Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and Göran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts.
They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications.
As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences. "