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Methods and approaches for teaching engineering disciplines are evolving to adapt to the needs of companies and society. Engineering Design is one of the areas most influenced by such changes and constantly striving to develop more effective and efficient strategies to prepare the soon-to-be engineers to face the challenges of a real working environment. This paper presents an approach used to teach the use of value models for concept trade-off in the preliminary design phase, in line with the industrial challenges highlighted by the literature on Value Driven Design. The approach is based on realistic design sessions assigning to master students a value assessment challenge. The paper describes the rationale of the approach, its set-up, and a validation activity run to compare the performances of the students with those of industrial practitioners. The results of the study show that the students taking part in the design sessions can produce results that do not statistically differ from those of industrial practitioners. Moreover, the students' self-reflection on the achievement of the intended learning outcomes show a high satisfaction toward the achievement of the educational objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of readily accessible computation and data storage capabilities, models have been increasingly leveraged for generating system data to support decision making. Moving beyond considerations of what makes a good model, Interactive Model-Centric Systems Engineering seeks to address core challenges as well as key implications associated with relying upon models for generating the data upon which important system decisions are made. Among these is the issue of understanding the consequences of model choice itself. This paper proposes three categories of models: performance, cost, and value, and addresses the question of value model trading. The concept is illustrated through a demonstration Space Tug satellite system case where four value models (multi-attribute utility, analytic hierarchy process, cost-benefit analysis, and measure of effectiveness) are each used to assess the goodness of potential system alternatives. The consequence of value model choice changes the Pareto efficient set of “best” system solutions, and a comparison of these sets reveals the potential of finding system solutions that are robust to value model choice, supporting the strategic goal of identifying resilient system decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It has been argued that a value-driven approach can potentially eliminate troubling issues that arise during the design process, such as cost and schedule overrun, by taking a holistic perspective on how individual design decisions impact high-level attributes of concern. However, value-driven approaches can be difficult to implement in practice, at least partly because supporting tools and methods have not yet been sufficiently developed. Additionally, due to the multitude of researchers investigating the concept of value, it can be difficult to unambiguously characterize what defines an effective value model. In this paper, we attempt to address these issues by first reviewing the literature to produce a clear and concise enumeration of the characteristics of effective value models. Next, a three-stage systematic method is presented as a tool to aid in the specification of value models. To demonstrate the use of the method, a case study is presented that investigates the conceptual design of a multiple- input multiple output hybrid energy system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT Criteria are the central focus of multi-criteria decision analysis. Many authors have suggested using our values (or preferences) to define the criteria we use to evaluate alternatives. Value-focused thinking (VFT) is an important philosophy that advocates a more fundamental view of values in our decision making in our private and professional lives. VFT proponents advocate starting first with our values and then using our values to create decision opportunities, evaluate alternatives and finally develop improved alternatives. It has been 20 years since VFT was first introduced by Ralph Keeney. This paper surveys the VFT literature to provide a comprehensive summary of the significant applications, describe the main research developments and identify areas for future research. We review the scope and magnitude of VFT applications and the key developments in theory since VFT was introduced in 1992 and found 89 papers written in 29 journals from 1992 to 2010. We develop about 20 research questions that include the type of article (application, theory, case study, etc.), the size of the decision space (which, when given, ranged from $200K to billions of dollars), the contribution documented in the article (application benefits) and the research contributions (categorized by preferences, uncertainties and alternatives). After summarizing the answers to these questions, we conclude the paper with suggestions for improving VFT applications and potential future research. We found a large number of significant VFT applications and several useful research contributions. We also found an increasing number of VFT papers written by international authors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this special issue is to introduce a new theme, the use of game and decision theory in reliability modeling and risk analysis, which was the focus of the First Symposium on Games and Decisions in Reliability and Risk (GDRR) held at the George Washington University on May 27-28, 2009. The issue considered papers presented at the Second Symposium on GDRR (http://www.mi.imati.cnr.it/conferences/gdrr11.html), held at the Hotel Villa Carlotta, Belgirate (VB), Lake Maggiore, Italy, on May 19-21, 2011, and also was open to the public for submission of papers relevant to the theme. The contributors to the special issue include Sevillano, Rios Insua, and Rios; Delquié; Foschi and Spizzichino; French; Bhattacharjya and Deleris; Bhattacharjya and Shachter; Lejeune; Cheung and Zhuang; Smith and Dodd; Sri Bhashyam and Montibeller; and Paté-Cornell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With ever-increasing terror threats, governments and security officials would benefit from a better understanding of what motivates terrorists to cause social unrest. A recent research trend is on gaining greater knowledge about the values of malicious agents to help manage the risk of terrorism. As a result, there seems to be the potential to use decision analysis as a means to model what may drive malicious agents to commit harmful actions. So far, research on this topic has assumed static preferences of such agents. In this paper, we present a framework that may be used to infer how terrorists' priorities may change over time and their impact on their choice of a harmful action. We suggest modeling state-dependent priorities of a terrorist group via a multicriteria model that incorporates state-dependent priorities to account for preference change caused by exogenous triggers and representing the environment as a system dynamics model. We describe how terrorists' visceral factors may affect the prioritization of objectives and show how such an analysis may support risk management in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exemplary science instructors use inquiry to tailor content to student's learning needs; traditional textbooks treat science as a set of facts and a rigid curriculum. Publishers now allow instructors to compile pieces of published and/or self-authored text to make custom textbooks. This brings numerous advantages, including the ability to produce smaller, cheaper text and added flexibility on the teaching models used. Moreover, the internet allows instructors to decentralize textbooks through easy access to educational objects such as audiovisual simulations, individual textbook chapters, and scholarly research articles. However, these new opportunities bring with them new problems. With educational materials easy to access, manipulate and duplicate, it is necessary to define intellectual property boundaries, and the need to secure documents against unlawful copying and use is paramount. Engineers are developing and enhancing information embedding technologies, including steganography, cryptography, watermarking, and fingerprinting, to label and protect intellectual property. While these are showing their utility in securing information, hackers continue to find loop holes in these protection schemes, forcing engineers to constantly assess the algorithms to make them as secure as possible. As newer technologies rise, people still question whether custom publishing is desirable. Many instructors see the process as complex, costly, and substandard in comparison to using traditional text. Publishing companies are working to improve attitudes through advertising. What lacks is peer reviewed evidence showing that custom publishing improves learning. Studies exploring the effect of custom course materials on student attitude and learning outcomes are a necessary next step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions are made to achieve objectives. A qualitative list of the objectives for a decision is the foundation for a value model that unambiguously represents objectives in a quantitative manner. The objectives guide thinking and the value model provides a basis for analyzing alternatives to best meet the desired objectives. This article illustrates the usefulness of clearly identifying objectives and developing value models to support anti-terrorism analysis. It outlines procedures to develop value models for the Department of Homeland Security and for terrorist organizations. The later is useful to both design anti-terrorism alternatives and suggest possible terrorist priorities and actions. An example that develops a terrorist value model for the theft and misuse of plutonium is presented. Several uses of value models for anti-terrorist activities are discussed and suggestions for developing such value models are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]