Many of the key notions associated with spatial planning are essentially ’fuzzy’ in their nature. For example, while almost everyone accepts ’sustainability’ as an important goal of planning, the actions of the actors involved can render the achieved ’sustainability’ minimal, or even counterproductive. Putting forward an innovative way of looking at planning problems and policies, this volume suggests actor-consulting is important in addressing the fuzzy nature of planning. A tool to address differences in understanding, actor-consulting is based on an analysis of actor motives, perceptions and contributions. By inviting all actors to express their desired, actual and potential contributions to achieving an agreed outcome to a local policy issue, decision-makers have a means to develop their goals in line with the roles, motivation, perception and behaviour of the various actors involved. Including contributions from Patsy Healy, Johan Woltjer, Don Miller and Karel Martens, the book presents a variety of case studies which demonstrate the use of the actor-consulting model in addressing planning issues.

Many of the key notions associated with spatial planning are essentially ’fuzzy’ in their nature. For example, while almost everyone accepts ’sustainability’ as an important goal of planning, the actions of the actors involved can render the achieved ’sustainability’ minimal, or even counterproductive. Putting forward an innovative way of looking at planning problems and policies, this volume suggests actor-consulting is important in addressing the fuzzy nature of planning. A tool to address differences in understanding, actor-consulting is based on an analysis of actor motives, perceptions and contributions. By inviting all actors to express their desired, actual and potential contributions to achieving an agreed outcome to a local policy issue, decision-makers have a means to develop their goals in line with the roles, motivation, perception and behaviour of the various actors involved. Including contributions from Patsy Healy, Johan Woltjer, Don Miller and Karel Martens, the book presents a variety of case studies which demonstrate the use of the actor-consulting model in addressing planning issues.

This book starts with the basic concepts of Fuzzy Logic: the membership function, the intersection and the union of fuzzy sets, fuzzy numbers, and the extension principle underlying the algorithmic operations. Several chapters are devoted to applications of Fuzzy Logic in Operations Research: PERT planning with uncertain activity durations, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with vague preferential statements, and Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) with weighted degrees of satisfaction. New items are: Fuzzy PERT using activity durations with triangular membership functions, Fuzzy SMART with a sensitivity analysis based upon Fuzzy Logic, the Additive and the Multiplicative AHP with a similar feature, ELECTRE using the ideas of the AHP and SMART, and a comparative study of the ideal-point methods for MOO. Finally, earlier studies of colour perception illustrate the attempts to find a physiological basis for the set-theoretical and the algorithmic operations in Fuzzy Logic. The last chapter also discusses some key issues in linguistic categorization and the prospects of Fuzzy Logic as a multi-disciplinary research activity. Audience: Researchers and students working in applied mathematics, operations research, management science, business administration, econometrics, industrial engineering, information systems, artificial intelligence, mathematical psychology, and psycho-physics.

This book shows how the application of fuzzy logic can benefit management, group decision making, strategic planning, supply chain management and other business imperatives. The theoretical analysis is fully supported by real-life case studies. The book develops themes that businesses can use to master effectiveness and quality, work with flexibility, and support continuous learning in the organization and the individual.

Spatial planning, strongly advocated by government and the profession, is intended to be more holistic, more strategic, more inclusive, more integrative and more attuned to sustainable development than previous approaches. In what the authors refer to as the New Spatial Planning, there is a fairly rapidly evolving maturity and sophistication in how strategies are developed and produced. Crucially, the authors argue that the reworked boundaries of spatial planning means that to understand it we need to look as much outside the formal system of practices of ‘planning’ as within it. Using a rich empirical resource base, this book takes a critical look at recent practices to see whether the new spatial planning is having the kinds of impacts its advocates would wish. Contributing to theoretical debates in planning, state restructuring and governance, it also outlines and critiques the contemporary practice of spatial planning. This book will have a place on the shelves of researchers and students interested in urban/regional studies, politics and planning studies.

This article is a first step in the direction of extending possibilistic planning to account for incomplete and imprecise knowledge of the world state.

This book presents a comprehensive study on intelligent container terminals. Based on the development experience gained to date with container terminals, it analyzes information flows and their interactions with container terminals; illustrates the operation management process from information collection to resource planning and from equipment scheduling to field operation; highlights several dynamic decision-making problems concerning digital operation processes and container terminals; reveals the basis of the discrete logistics system; and discusses the future of intelligent container terminals.