Suchergebnisse

This is the final version. Available from MDPI via the DOI in this record. ; Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods have shown advantages in supporting decision-making with problems that confront conflicting objectives. However, current applications to complex environmental problems featuring the dynamic social sphere, particularly problems involving cultural heritage and nature, have yet to substantially reflect this. The dynamic social sphere reflects the demand for scenario forecasting in decision-making support. This knowledge gap has not been addressed sufficiently in MCDA research. A participatory MCDA method is hence proposed as a merger with Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) as the scenario forecasting. The MCDA is then carried out to tackle a complex environmental problem caused by traditional food production in a historic town, Daxi in Taiwan. The result reveals a remarkable willingness to support this issue of a historically significant industry causing detriment to environment (with WTP estimate of 128,700,000 USD from the public) and suggests a plan that applies multiple policy instruments rather than following a potentially adverse polluter-pays principle. This manifests the authors' argument that recognition of heritage significance has dramatically affected selection of policy instruments and provides a critical recommendation to the local government which has struggled to find solutions. The proposed MCDA also highlights its participatory aspect for addressing issues involving cultural heritage, supported by several key steps, in particular the intervention-impact value tree building, the scenario forecasting and the sensitivity analysis. ; Newton-Mosharafa Fund ; UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) ; Egypt Science and Technology Development Fund (STDF)

INTRODUCTION: The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic unveiled a strong need for advanced and informative surveillance tools. The Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at the University of Calgary took action to develop a surveillance dashboard, which would facilitate the education of the public, and answer critical questions posed by local and national government. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to create an interactive method of surveillance, or a "COVID-19 Tracker" for Canadian use. The Tracker offers user-friendly graphics characterizing various aspects of the current pandemic (e.g. case count, testing, hospitalizations, and policy interventions). METHODS: Six publicly available data sources were used, and were selected based on the frequency of updates, accuracy and types of data, and data presentation. The datasets have different levels of granularity for different provinces, which limits the information that we are able to show. Additionally, some datasets have missing entries, for which the "last observation carried forward" method was used. The website was created and hosted online, with a backend server, which is updated on a daily basis. The Tracker development followed an iterative process, as new figures were added to meet the changing needs of policy-makers. RESULTS: The resulting Tracker is a dashboard that visualizes real-time data, along with policy interventions from various countries, via user-friendly graphs with a hover option that reveals detailed information. The interactive features allow the user to customize the figures by jurisdiction, country/region, and the type of data shown. Data is displayed at the national and provincial level, as well as by health regions. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 Tracker offers real-time, detailed, and interactive visualizations that have the potential to shape crucial decision-making and inform Albertans and Canadians of the current pandemic.