Decision-making processes

Public consultation and participation aims to assure the quality, comprehensiveness and effectiveness of the EIA, as well as to ensure that the public s views are adequately taken into consideration in the decision-making process. 

The benefit of using the decision tree approach is that it clarifies the decision-making process. The discipline required to construct a logical decision tree may also serve to explain the key decisions and to highlight uncertainties. 

The 5th Framework Programme must be more flexible, both in its research activities and in the decision-making process. The Commission proposes that a simplified decision-making procedure should apply to research policy, including the use of qualified majority voting rather than unanimity in the Council of Ministers. 

One variation of rule-based systems are fuzzy logic systems. These programs use statistical decision-making processes in which they can account for the fact that a specific piece of data has a certain chance of indicating a particular result. All these probabilities are combined in order predict a final answer. 

Decision Process. In many cases, the decision regarding the need for exposure reduction measures is obvious and no formal statistical procedure is necessary. However, as exposure criteria are lowered, and control becomes more difficult, close calls become more common, and a logical decision-making process is needed. A typical process is shown in Eigure 2. Even when decision making is easy it is useful to remember the process and the assumptions involved. Based on an evaluation, decisions are made regarding control. The evaluation and decision steps caimot be separated because the conduct of the evaluation, the strategy, measurement method, and data collection are all a part of the decision process. 

A new facihty should be located ia an area that is economically suitable (see Plant location). At the same time, the social, environmental, and aesthetic effects must be considered. These decisions are part of land-use pohcies. As of this writing (1996), there is no national land-use program. However, there are certain laws that cover portions of this decision-making process and some states have such programs. 

G. S. Sebestyen, Decision-Making Processes in Pattern Recognition MacMillan, New York, 1962. 

The analysis of a risk—that is, its estimation—leads to the assessment of that risk and the decision-making processes of selecting the appropriate level of risk reduction. In most studies this is an iterative process of risk analysis and risk assessment until the risk is reduced to some specified level. The subjec t of acceptable or tolerable levels of risk that coiild be applied to decision making on risks is a complex subject which will not oe addressed in this section. 

For all risk measures it is possible to estimate the risk level of the current process as well as the risk levels from incorporation of various risk reduction alternatives. Management can then use this information as an important input in the final risk decision-making process. 

The analytical tools to accomplish laminate design are at least twofold. First, the invariant laminate stiffness concepts developed by Tsai and Pagano [7-16 and 7-17] used to vary laminate stiffnesses. Second, structural optimization techniques as described by Schmit [7-12] can be used to provide a decision-making process for variation of iami-nate design parameters. This duo of techniques is particularly well suited to composite structures design because the simultaneous possibility and necessity to tailor the material to meet structural requirements exists to a degree not seen in isotropic materials. 

The main factors found to be affecting the decision to blowdown manually were the blowdown philosophy, procedures, and training. Factors affecting the efficiency of the decision making process and the execution of blowdown were the ergonomics of the information presentation in the control room communications, and various aspects of the hardware. 

The use of the risk-based decision making process allows for efficient allocation of limited resources, such as time, money, regulatory oversight, and qualified professionals. Advantages of using tliis process include ... 

Risk-based decision making and risk-based corrective action arc decision making processes for assessing and responding to a health hazard. The processes take into account effects on human healdi and the enviroiunent, inasmuch as chemical releases vaiy greatly in terms of complexity, physical and chemical characteristics, and in the risk that they may pose. Risk-based corrective action (RBCA) was initially designed by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to assess petroleum releases, but tlie process may be tailored for use with any hazard. 

Availability of Materials. Availability of the candidate material is a very essential consideration in the decision-making process. There is no sense in specifying the use of a particular material if it cannot be obtained within the time constraints of the project. It is also advisable to select materials that are available from more than one supplier. If proprietary materials that are only available from one supplier are used, one can become a captive customer at the mercy of the supplier on cost and delivery. 

Capability of supporting learning capabilities and decision making processes in complex situations... 

Board members, authors, reviewers, consultants, and advisers who participate in the preparation of a CICAD are required to declare any real or potential conflict of interest in relation to the subjects under discussion at any stage of the process. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations may be invited to observe the proceedings of the Final Review Board. Observers may participate in Board discussions only at the invitation of the Chairperson, and they may not participate in the final decision-making process. 

A recent review of option models in drug development, co-authored by a biostatistician from AstraZeneca in Molndal, Sweden [14], suggests that there has up to now been a lack of appreciation among pharmaceutical executives of the value that statistics could bring to the decision making process. This review quantifies the value of information that could terminate unsuccessful projects early and assesses the time-risk trade-off. It proves that projects split... 

New combinations of simulation and optimization allow a much wider set of R D decision making processes to be optimized, at least approximately, than in the past. This exciting new approach has been developed to solve many problems thought to be impossible to solve with classic options analysis. The idea is to trade off the exactness of the optimization for the ability to look at more complex situations [21]. 

Chadwick A, Hajek M. Learning to improve the decision-making process in research. Drug Discov Today 2004 9(6) 251-7. 

Whilst LCA is a powerful tool, which will become increasingly useful, as it is refined and becomes more objective, its complexity and cost, and the length of time taken to carry out a full analysis make it an impractical tool to use on a day-to-day basis for research and development chemists and chemical engineers. What is really required for most practising technologists is a simple set of metrics to aid the decision-making process involved in choosing one synthetic route or product over another. 

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