MGT 425 SEU Advances In Environment Biotechnology And Biomedicine Discussion Assignment Questions:(Marks 05)
Read the attached Article Titled as ““Modeling Autonomous Decision-Making on Energy and
Environmental Management Using Petri-Net: Case Study” by Niken Prilandita, Benjamin McLellan, Tetsuo Tezuka and answer the following Questions:
1. Explain the main issues and challenges discussed in this article titled as “Modeling Autonomous Decision-Making on Energy and Environmental Management Using Petri-Net: Case Study”. (500-600 words)
2. What are your opinions about this study and how it is connected to your learning in course and beneficial for you? (300-400 words)
Rubric
Excellent
Very Good
Good
Unacceptable
Complete and Clear Answer.
Marks:100
Very Clear, well-explained and completed answer, Splendid understanding of decision-making modeling.
Marks: 75
Clear, well-expressed and completed answer, adequate understanding of decision-making modeling
Marks 50
Partially clear, not well-expressed and completed answer, Incomplete understanding of decision-making modeling
Marks: 0
Not clear, not expressed and not completed answer, Little or no understanding of decision-making modeling College of Administrative and Financial Sciences
Assignment 3
MGT425-Spreadsheet Decision Modeling
Deadline: 9/4/2020 @ 23:59
Course Name:
Spreadsheet Decision Modeling
Student’s Name:
Course Code: MGT425
Student’s ID Number:
Semester: 2
CRN:
Academic Year: 1440/1441 H
For Instructor’s Use only
Instructor’s Name:
Students’ Grade: Marks Obtained/Out of Level of Marks: High/Middle/Low
Instructions – PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY
• The Assignment must be submitted on Blackboard (WORD format only) via allocated
folder.
• Assignments submitted through email will not be accepted.
• Students are advised to make their work clear and well presented, marks may be
reduced for poor presentation. This includes filling your information on the cover page.
• Students must mention question number clearly in their answer.
• Late submission will NOT be accepted.
• Avoid plagiarism, the work should be in your own words, copying from students or
other resources without proper referencing will result in ZERO marks. No exceptions.
• All answered must be typed using Times New Roman (size 12, double-spaced) font.
No pictures containing text will be accepted and will be considered plagiarism).
• Submissions without this cover page will NOT be accepted.
Course Learning Outcomes-Covered
PLO
2.9
2.2
Course Learning Outcome (CLO)
Question
Explain simple decision models and management science ideas that provide
powerful and (often surprising) qualitative insight about large spectrum of
managerial problems.
Demonstrate the tools for deciding when and which decision model to use for
specific problems.
Question 1
Question 2
Assignment Instructions:
• Log in to Saudi Digital Library (SDL) via University’s website
• On first page of SDL, choose “English Databases”
• From the list find and click on EBSCO database.
• In the Search Bar of EBSCO find the following article:
Title: “Modeling Autonomous Decision-Making on Energy and Environmental Management
Using Petri-Net: Case Study”.
Author: Niken Prilandita, Benjamin McLellan, Tetsuo Tezuka.
(Marks 05)
Assignment Questions:
Read the above Article Titled as ““Modeling Autonomous Decision-Making on Energy and
Environmental Management Using Petri-Net: Case Study” by Niken Prilandita, Benjamin McLellan,
Tetsuo Tezuka and answer the following Questions:
1. Explain the main issues and challenges discussed in this article titled as “Modeling Autonomous
Decision-Making on Energy and Environmental Management Using Petri-Net: Case Study”.
(500-600 words)
2. What are your opinions about this study and how it is connected to your learning in course and
beneficial for you? (300-400 words)
Rubric
Complete and
Clear Answer.
Answers:
Excellent
Marks:100
Very Clear, wellexplained and
completed
answer, Splendid
understanding of
decision-making
modeling.
Very Good
Marks: 75
Clear, wellexpressed and
completed
answer, adequate
understanding of
decision-making
modeling
Good
Marks 50
Partially clear, not
well-expressed
and completed
answer,
Incomplete
understanding of
decision-making
modeling
Unacceptable
Marks: 0
Not clear, not
expressed and not
completed
answer, Little or
no understanding
of decisionmaking modeling
challenges
Article
Modeling Autonomous Decision-Making on
Energy and Environmental Management Using
Petri-Net: The Case Study of a Community in
Bandung, Indonesia
Niken Prilandita *, Benjamin McLellan and Tetsuo Tezuka
Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan;
b-mclellan@energy.kyoto-u.ac.jp (B.M.); tezuka@energy.kyoto-u.ac.jp (T.T.)
* Correspondence: nikenpri@sappk.itb.ac.id; Tel.: +81-75-753-4739; Fax: +81-75-753-9189
Academic Editor: Palmiro Poltronieri
Received: 28 December 2015; Accepted: 5 April 2016; Published: 14 April 2016
Abstract: Autonomous decision-making in this study is defined as the process where decision-makers
have the freedom and ability to find problems, select goals, and make decisions for achieving the
selected problems/goals by themselves. Autonomous behavior is considered significant for achieving
decision implementation, especially in the context of energy and environmental management, where
multiple stakeholders are involved and each stakeholder holds valuable local information for making
decisions. This paper aims to build a structured process in modeling the autonomous decision-making.
A practical decision-making process in waste-to-energy conversion activities in a community in
Bandung, Indonesia, is selected as a case study. The decision-making process here is considered as
a discrete event system, which is then represented as a Petri-net model. First, the decision-making
process in the case study is decomposed into discrete events or decision-making stages, and the
stakeholders’ properties in each stage are extracted from the case study. Second, several stakeholder
properties that indicate autonomous behavior are identified as autonomous properties. Third,
presented is a method to develop the decision-making process as a Petri-net model. The model is
utilized for identifying the critical points for verifying the performance of the derived Petri-net.
Keywords: autonomy; decision-making; Petri-net; energy; environmental; community; Indonesia
1. Introduction
The recent global agenda and technological challenges for creating a more sustainable
environment have encouraged countries around the world to gradually shift towards sustainable
energy transitions. Upon the new global agreement of Sustainable Development Goals, every country
is now highly anticipated to direct their efforts towards realizing a more sustainable energy system and
environment [1]. From the technology side, the emergence of new technologies, such as smart grids
and source-centered renewable energies, have expanded the potential and requirements of energy
generation and management in ways that have not been available previously. These facts suggest that
the energy system is likely to become more distributed and localized, thus the decision-making and
policy-making process in the energy sector should be adjusted to follow this future tendency [2].
Most decisions made on energy and environmental management affect a large number of people
and, thus, are of public interest. Decision-making in this sector usually becomes complicated since
various interests need to be accommodated in the process. Moreover, once a consensus has been
successfully reached, it does not guarantee successful implementation. Various decision-making
approaches for reaching an easy consensus, as well as for achieving successful implementation,
have been proposed. Two common approaches in decision-making are with the centralized and the
Challenges 2016, 7, 9; doi:10.3390/challe7010009
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Challenges 2016, 7, 9
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decentralized approaches [3,4]. The quest of balancing between the centralized and the decentralized
systems for decision-making is often an issue in organizational management. Easy access to
information with the advancement of information technology, the internet, and other means today,
have made the decision-making style in organizations lean towards a more decentralized style [5,6].
However, this approach may not be entirely applicable for cases in energy and environmental
management that occur in the public domain.
This study puts more focus on autonomy in decision-making processes regardless of whether they
are conducted under a centralized or a decentralized system. Two ways of understanding the concept
of autonomy are considered here. Firstly, autonomy in the political or public administration field,
which is often seen as one of the traits of a more decentralized system [4]. Secondly, as understood
in the current study, autonomy can be considered as a property of persons regardless of the systemic
context [7–9]. Therefore, we argue that autonomy can exist in both centralized and decentralized
approaches because autonomy is the property of each decision-maker.
The hypothesis of this study is that decisions made autonomously are more likely to achieve
successful outcomes. Autonomy in making decisions is believed to be related to an increase in quality
of life. Research from neuroscience has found that actively making decisions can boost pleasure and
increase the decision-makers’ happiness, satisfaction, and perceived control [10]. Furthermore, high
levels of happiness and satisfaction are causal influences on success and achievement, not the other
way around [11]. Simply stated, if a decision-maker has made an autonomous decision, without being
coerced or forced, it is considered more likely that the decision-maker will achieve the decision goal
and benefit from that.
Normatively, stakeholders’ autonomy in making decisions is important, though its important
role in decision-making may not been objectively examined [7]. The fact that we have not found
studies that objectively examined the role of autonomy in decision-making in energy-environmental
management showed that this theme has to date been insufficiently examined. We argue that the
recent global agenda and technological advances in the energy-environmental sector (e.g., smart-grid
technologies, decentralized energy, and market liberalization) expect decision-makers to become more
autonomous. This situation has created the necessity to develop a framework that can represent and
identify the role of stakeholders’ autonomy in the decision-making process. Such a framework would
consist of several elements employed for specific tasks, and is the purpose of the current research.
This paper discusses one of the important elements of the framework, a model that aims to represent,
analyze, and simulate the autonomous decision-making process.
The autonomous decision-making model in this paper is developed as a discrete event system,
and this paper presents the method to build such a model. The decision-making process is
decomposed into discrete events that we call decision-making stages. Afterwards, the properties
of stakeholders involved in each stage are identified; thus, the concept of a discrete event system
for autonomous decision-making is established. Petri-net is utilized to represent the discrete event
system of the autonomous decision-making process. Each decision-making stage, the stakeholders’
properties, and the state after decisions are made; corresponding to a small Petri-net model
consisting of a few transitions and places. The autonomous decision-making model is constructed
by combining all of these small Petri-net models of each event/stage. As an addition, we conducted
analysis of the Petri-net model’s behavior for identifying the stages which are indispensable for an
autonomous decision-making system. These stages are called the critical points in the autonomous
decision-making process.
2. The Definition of Autonomous Decision-Making
This section explains the definition of autonomous decision-making. The term, autonomous
decision-making is defined by dissecting it into the root words comprising it, which are “autonomy”
and “decision-making”. The development of the concept of autonomy as a political and personal
property is historically explained, followed by a brief explanation on various scopes of the
Challenges 2016, 7, 9
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decision-making process, and various types of energy decision-making. Based on this information, we
construct the definition of autonomous decision-making used in this study.
2.1. The Concept of Autonomy
The definition of autonomy has been through several changes throughout the course of history.
As mentioned above, there are at least two different concepts of autonomy explained in this paper.
Autonomy originated from the Greek words “auto” which means self, and “nomos” which means law.
This concept was firstly coined referring to the city states in ancient Greece that were self-governing.
Originally, autonomy was defined in a political manner, which was the right of the states (or city-states,
in that instance) to administer their own affairs [9]. In the context of public administration management,
territorial or local autonomy is the result of a decentralization process [12]. In the Indonesian context
for example, the Law of Decentralization number 22/1999, was the beginning of the country’s journey
towards a more decentralized political structure. This law has since become the legal basis for
providing more autonomy to local governments in making decisions regarding their own territory
and environment. The spirit of the law has had a side effect, however, in that it caused the Indonesian
people to gain greater awareness of autonomy, knowing that they had more freedom in choosing
among options. This has promoted decision-making processes to be performed more autonomously
in various levels of society’s hierarchical structure, including at the lower authority levels, such as
villages and sub-districts [13]. Looking at this fact, the term autonomy in Indonesia has gradually
become understood not only as the property of a state or territory, but also as a personal trait.
One of the most important moments in the history of the concept of autonomy was when the
definition of autonomy was transformed from the property of a state in the ancient Greek era, into a
property of persons during the Renaissance era [7,8]. Since then, the concept of autonomy has been
understood in both ways. However, autonomy in the majority of contemporary works is seen as a
property of persons, or personal autonomy [7]. Although the concept of autonomy mainly revolves
around these two definitions, the dimensions of autonomy are understood in many different ways,
depending on which field of study is viewing it. Mackenzie, for example, defined three dimensions
of autonomy, namely self-determination, self-governance, and self-authorization [14]. Other studies
focus on the self-directedness and resoluteness dimensions of autonomy [9]. Meanwhile, the computer
science and information technology fields view the ability to continuously learn or self-learning traits
in the emergence of autonomous machines or artificial intelligence as one of the most important
characteristics of autonomy [15].
2.2. Decision-Making Process
The definition of decision-making has been long established, and since decision-making is
understood as a process of making decisions, then the definitions mostly evolved on the scope
of the process. There are two predominately different views in decision theory regarding the extent
of the decision-making scope. Firstly, decision-making is defined as a process started by identifying
problems or goals, and ended after a decision has been made. One of the main supporters of this
concept was Herbert Simon (1960) [16]. Later, Huber (1980) expanded the concept of decision-making
by defining it as “the process through which a course of action is taken” [17], and the process by
which the decision is implemented is considered as part of the problem-solving process. Most of the
studies that defined the decision-making process came from the field of organizational management.
Meanwhile when decisions need to be made in the public domain, the decision-making process is often
regarded as the whole cycle from problem identification up to decision implementation and evaluation,
and then feeding-back to problem identification. This is known as a generic decision cycle [18], or a
planning process [19]. An example of a decision-making cycle is presented in Figure 1. In this study,
we investigate the decision-making process extended to the implementation stages.
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Figure 1. Example of a decision-making cycle [18,19].
Figure 1. Example of a decision-making cycle [18,19].
2.3. Energy-Environmental
Energy-Environmental Decision-Making
Decision-Making at
Various Stakeholder
2.3.
at Various
Stakeholder Levels
Levels
The following
following section
section explains
explains decision-making
decision-making in
in energy
energy and
and environment
by various
The
environment by
various
stakeholders,
such
as
national
government,
local
government
(provincial/city/regency
governments,
stakeholders, such as national government, local government (provincial/city/regency governments,
and formal
formal agencies/bodies
agencies/bodieswithin
withinthese
theselocal
localgovernments),
governments), community,
community, household
household and
and individual
individual
and
(households
and
individuals
are
considered
as
a
single
decision-maker),
and
non-governmental
(households and individuals are considered as a single decision-maker), and non-governmental
institutions (i.e.,
local
NGOs,
business
or private
sector sector
stakeholders,
media, experts
institutions
(i.e.,international
internationaland
and
local
NGOs,
business
or private
stakeholders,
media,
and
academicians).
As
mentioned
earlier,
decision-making
in
energy
and
environmental
management
experts and academicians). As mentioned earlier, decision-making in energy and environmental
often becomesoften
complex
because
it occurs
in the
and, therefore,
various
stakeholders
management
becomes
complex
because
it public
occurs domain
in the public
domain and,
therefore,
various
are involved are
in it.involved
According
toAccording
Sexton, et al.
[20], theetmain
stakeholders
that are usually
in
stakeholders
in it.
to Sexton,
al. [20],
the main stakeholders
that involved
are usually
environment-related
decision-making
are
national
governments,
regional
or
local
government
bodies,
involved in environment-related decision-making are national governments, regional or local
business associations,
environmental
advocacyenvironmental
groups, community
or neighborhood
groups, and
government
bodies, business
associations,
advocacy
groups, community
or
affected
or
interested
individuals.
The
relationships
between
these
stakeholders
can
be
classified
neighborhood groups, and affected or interested individuals. The relationships between
these
into two typescan
of relationship,
are types
vertical
horizontal
(parallel)
relationships
stakeholders
be classified which
into two
of (hierarchical)
relationship, and
which
are vertical
(hierarchical)
and
with
each
other
[21,22].
Decision-making
for
individual
stakeholders
and
groups
of
stakeholders
is
horizontal (parallel) relationships with each other [21,22]. Decision-making for individual
influenced
both
by
the
structure
of
relationships
and
the
characteristics
of
the
individual
stakeholders.
stakeholders and groups of stakeholders is influenced both by the structure of relationships and the
Energy related
and policy-making (We use the phrase “energy (and environmental)
characteristics
of thedecision-making
individual stakeholders.
decision-making
and
policy-making”
or “decision-making
in energy
in this paper
Energy related decision-making
and policy-making
(Wesector”
use interchangeably
the phrase “energy
(and
because
the
research
object
is
related
with
both
energy
and
environmental
sector.)
at
the
national
level
environmental) decision-making and policy-making” or “decision-making in energy sector”
tends to occur in aintop-down
manner,
following
the hierarchical
of the
country’s
institutions.
interchangeably
this paper
because
the research
object structure
is related
with
both energy
and
In
the
UK,
for
example,
energy
decision-making
functions
have
historically
been
performed
mainly
by the
the
environmental sector.) at the national level tends to occur in a top-down manner, following
central
government
and
large
corporations
in
the
private
sector.
This
situation
began
to
change
after
the
hierarchical structure of the country’s institutions. In the UK, for example, energy decision-making
Localism Bill
was
stipulatedbeen
in 2010
aiming tomainly
shift decision-making
power from and
central
governments
to
functions
h…
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