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Abstract: Success of a contracted project requires collaborative effort from many parties, such as the project owner, the winning tender or contractor, and various suppliers in between. Many studies have been conducted in tender evaluation occurring early in the project life cycle from project owner’s viewpoint. However, responsible tenders are also necessary to evaluate the quality of a potential project owner to ensure that a bid/no-bid decision is correctly made. Such a decision-making problem is likely based on some uncertain factors and imprecise information about a particular owner. Fuzzy theory and probability have been commonly used in general evaluation problems. Since either works within its specified domain, integration of these two approaches within a unique domain becomes a difficult task. In this paper, we explore the usefulness of a novel evaluation model that combines both cloud theory and utility theory together for supporting decision making of multi-attribute evaluation problems under uncertainty. An application of this novel approach to owner evaluation demonstrates that this proposed novel approach is not only useful in dealing with owner evaluation in tendering, but also generic for solving multi-attribute evaluation problems in many disciplines. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the usefulness of cumulative prospect theory (CPT), an inductive–descriptive model for how people make choices with a priori unknown consequences, in the context of travelers’ coping with unreliable transport networks through the estimation of coefficients characterizing CPT’s value and weighting functions. Attention is directed toward employed parents’ trips to collect their child(ren) from the nursery at the end of workday because of parents’ strong sensitivity to the possibility of late arrivals there. Analysis of a stated response experiment about parents’ coping with unreliable transport networks en route to the nursery provides further evidence for a series of violations of the axioms underlying expected utility theory (EUT) – a deductive–normative model of decision-making under uncertainty that is widely used in transportation studies. The results also show that linkages exist between respondents’ everyday life and their responses in the stated response experiment and, by implication, the shape of CPT’s value function. It is therefore concluded that analytical frameworks for describing activity-travel behavior in situations of unreliability, variability and uncertainty should be both psychologically and socially realistic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, some behavioral (or descriptive) models of individual decision making under risk and/or uncertainty are discussed. Firstly, a model to explain the violations of expected utility hypothesis is described. In this model outcome-dependent, non-additive probabilities are introduced in a measurable value function under risk where probability of each event occurring is known. The effective application of this approach to the public sector is shown in modeling risks of extreme events with low probability and high outcome. Next, a measurable value function under uncertainty is also described where basic probability of a set of event is known but occurrence probability of each event is not known. Potential applicability to evaluating a global warming problem is mentioned. As a special case of the measurable value function under uncertainty an extended Kahneman–Tversky model of prospect theory under uncertainty (PTU) is described. An application of PTU in evaluating the sense of security provided by nursing care robots is described. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]