John Psarras

Artificial intelligence in short term electric load forecasting: a state-of-the-art survey for the researcher

Abstract Intelligent solutions, based on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, to solve complicated practical problems in various sectors are becoming more and more widespread nowadays. AI-based systems are being developed and deployed worldwide in myriad applications, mainly because of their symbolic reasoning, flexibility and explanation capabilities. This paper provides an overview for the researcher of AI technologies, as well as their current use in the field of short term electric load forecasting (STELF). The history of AI in STELF is outlined, leading to a discussion of the various approaches as well as the current research directions. The paper concludes by sharing thoughts and estimations on AI future prospects in this area. This review reveals that although still regarded as a novel methodology, AI technologies are shown to have matured to the point of offering real practical benefits in many of their applications.

Exploring the world of knowledge management: agreements and disagreements in the academic/practitioner community

Purpose – During the last 15 years, knowledge management (KM) has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. A myriad researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues. However, KM still needs extensive development – it is in its infancy. This paper aims to explore the world of KM in a different way; to review the current status quo and analyze the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners in order to highlight the key issues which need to be further researched.Design/methodology/approach – The authors attempt to review and analyze in a coherent way the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners – in the field of KM – based on a wide range of published works, including papers, books, reports and web sites.Findings – Based on the key agreements among researchers and practitioners and having in mind the remaining disagreements...

Towards knowledge cities: conceptual analysis and success stories

Over the past several years, there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management (KM) in our society. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that many KM disciplines and practices are relevant to the social‐level knowledge‐based development. In this context, the new theme of “knowledge cities” came to the front. This paper attempts on the one hand to define the concept in a coherent way – presenting also its main implications and benefits – and on the other hand, to examine – on a worldwide scale – the different models of knowledge cities as well as modes of practice. The authors were based on a broad range of published works, including papers, books, reports and Web sites. The main approach was to briefly present the existing views of the concept, accompanied by some criteria determining a knowledge city. The authors also tried to provide a meaningful and concise review of existing cases, avoiding to get into many confusing details. This review provided valuable input for the definition of the key success factors and main benefits related to knowledge cities. This new concept is currently a main topic of interest for the research community and practitioners. It becomes clear that it has important benefits and in this way, focused research is needed towards many directions, in order for it to become a part of our life in near future. This integrated review is a very useful source of information for academics and practitioners who want to be acquainted with the knowledge cities concept.

Multi-criteria decision aid for the formulation of sustainable technological energy priorities using linguistic variables

Implementation of new and innovative energy technologies is a key mean towards a sustainable energy system. Currently, governments have to decide from an increasingly diverse mix of them, the ones which warrant support, including funding and other incentives for private sector efforts. However, appraising energy technologies in terms of their sustainability is a really complex task, considering the series of uncertainties and implications that have to be encountered so as to obtain realistic and transparent results. In this context, the main aim of this paper is to present a direct and flexible multicriteria decision making approach, using linguistic variables, to assist policy makers in formulating sustainable technological energy priorities. Furthermore, its software realization will be applied to a number of technologies, in the context of the Greek Technology Foresight Programme, and the results will be presented and discussed. � 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Expert systems in production planning and scheduling: A state-of-the-art survey

Intelligent solutions, based on expert systems, to solve problems in the field of production planning and scheduling are becoming more and more widespread nowadays. Especially the last decade has witnessed a growing number of manufacturing companies, including glass, oil, aerospace, computers, electronics, metal and chemical industries—to name just a few—interested in the applications of expert systems (ESs) in manufacturing. This paper is a state-of-the-art review of the use of ESs in the field of production planning and scheduling. The paper presents famous expert systems known in the literature and current applications, analyzes the relative benefits and concludes by sharing thoughts and estimations on ESs future prospects in this area.

Project Ranking in the Armenian Energy Sector Using a Multicriteria Method for Groups

Project ranking is a complex problem that is often faced by the decision makers involved in the planning process. The necessity to take into account several decision parameters apart from purely economic ones, such as socio-political, technical, institutional and environmental, lead to the use of multicriteria methods instead of single uni-criterion ones. Moreover, most of the times such decisions are taken in a group environment. A hybrid of ELECTRE III and PROMETHEE methods, MURAME, has been specially developed and constitutes the main part of an integrated project ranking methodology for groups. The experience of the application of the methodology in the Armenian energy sector is presented.

A linguistic multicriteria analysis system combining fuzzy sets theory, ideal and anti-ideal points for location site selection

Most multicriteria methods try to model human thinking and insert the results of this modelling into their procedures. Following this path, the proposed multicriteria approach first captures the imprecision and vagueness of data by using linguistic variables. At a second level, it utilises human processes of decision-making by creating decision rules and modelling them with functions used in fuzzy sets theory. This method also is compatible with the way fuzzy logic models and combines fuzzy propositions. The proposed method considers the ideal solution and the anti-ideal solution and assesses each alternative in terms of distance as well as similarity to the ideal solution and the anti-ideal solution. Distance and similarity measures for fuzzy numbers are used and their aggregation is guided by the decision rules in order to construct decision functions. Further, OWA operators with maximal entropy are used to aggregate across all criteria and determine the overall score of each alternative. It is shown that the proposed method presents flexibility in modelling the decision makers preferences and it is also appropriate and effective to handle multicriteria problems of considerable complexity.

E-government: new concept, big challenge, success stories

Good governance is a concept that has recently come into regular use in political science and public administration and appears to be a member of a wider group of terms such as democracy, civil society, human rights, social development. In addition, it is only recently that government policy makers have started looking at the potential of applying the tools and techniques of e-commerce to the tasks of the government. Similar to the dramatic changes in e-commerce and e-business, the e-government revolution offers the potential to reform the public sector and improve the relationship between citizens and the government. This paper aims to highlight the importance of the emergence of e-government. It gives insights to the scope of developments in this emerging field, discusses key issues and implications and reviews specific case studies and success stories in order to illustrate various modes of practice. From this paper, it becomes clear that e-government needs to and will be part of our life in the near future.

Applying Knowledge Management in Higher Education: The Creation of a Learning Organisation

Knowledge Management (KM) has recently received considerable attention in the computer information systems community and is continuously gaining interest by industry, enterprises and academia. As w...

A multicriteria methodology for equity selection using financial analysis

In this article we present a multiple criteria methodology for supporting decisions that concern the selection of equities, on the basis of financial analysis. The ELECTRE Tri outranking classification method is employed for selecting the attractive equities, through the evaluation of the overall corporate performance of the corresponding firms. The crucial importance issue of the industry/sectoral accounting particularities was strongly taken into account. An elaborate review of coherent research studies is also provided. Finally, the validity of the proposed methodology is tested through a large scale application on the Athens Stock Exchange.